SHAWNEE – Oklahoma Baptist opened its outdoor track season last week during the Washington University Distance Carnival and OBU Invitational.
In St. Louis, Mo.,
Damien Williams broke the school's previous 10,000 record. The junior clocked a finish of 29:46.60 which broke Cordell Baker's 2021 time of 29:51.96. Williams' time was good for 11th place and met NCAA D2 outdoor qualifying standards.
Then in Shawnee,
Dwayne Fleming had a great weekend. The junior won the 100- and 200-meter dashes with NCAA times. He won the 100 in 10.35, a personal-best and 200 in 20.89. Both of those marks rank within the top-10 in Division II.
Fleming also ran a leg of the first-place 4x100 team. He joined
Caden Peevey,
Kobe Brown and
Ayo Toritsju and crossed the finish line in 40.62, an NCAA provisional time.
In the 400-meter dash, Toritsju won that race with a personal-best time of 46.74. That cleared NCAA qualifying standards too. OBU's last event win was delivered by
Ethan Vandevier. In the decathlon, he registered 6,214 points. That included first-place marks in the pole vault (3.95m); 110 hurdles (15.77); 400 (52.21); high jump (1.79m), long jump (6.70m) and 100 (10.87).
Also of note, Brown earned runner-up honors in the 400-meter dash (47.88) while
Boone Bennett PR'd in the 110 hurdles, earning silver in 14.38. There was also a second-place finish from
Nathan Goodson in the high jump, when he cleared 1.95m.
Furthermore, the 4x400 squad of Korban Murphy,
Noah Zachary,
Braxton Ferguson and
Rylan Nofire took second place in that event (3:26.56) while
Maddox Motley PR'd in the javelin with a third-place mark (55.62m). Lastly,
Matthew Werschem took bronze in the hammer throw, reaching 54.22 meters.
The Bison have two meets this week. The Texas Relays starting on Wednesday and the David Suenram Gorilla Classic on Saturday, April 4.
