DC Finishes Second at Hoosier-Buckeye Invitational

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. – Blake Witherspoon won a pair of events to help the Defiance College men's track and field team finish second at the Hoosier-Buckeye Invitational on the campus of Rose-Hulman. The Jackets racked up 110.50 points in the meet, trailing only the host Engineers.

Witherspoon claimed top honors in both the 55m and 200m dashes, while leading a trio Jackets that combined to tally 36 points in the two events. The freshman won the 55m with a time of 6.61, before breaking a meet record in the 200m dash with a personal-best time of 22.83. Ryan Perry and Trey Harris also scored in both events, finishing third (6.66) and fifth (6.66) in the 55m and fourth (23.47) and eighth (24.37) in the 200m.

Austin Trivett cleared 13-11.75 in the pole vault to grab DC's third event title of the meet, while running a personal-record time of 8.16 in the 55m hurdle prelims on his way to a fourth-place finish in the finals. The Defiance, Ohio native was edged out by teammate Brad Zarembski in the high jump, as the two finished fourth and fifth respectively.

Jordan Weber was the only other Jacket to score in three events, placing in the long jump, triple jump and 55m hurdles, while fellow frosh Justin Perkins set a personal-record with a time of 4:41.21 in the mile on his way to fourth-place.

Kyle Longsdorf was sixth in the pole vault, while joining Harris, Brian Badenhop and Phil Williamson on DC's second-place 4x200 relay team. Seth Bidlack, who was sixth in the 800m, and Andrew Baker, seventh in the 400m, teamed with Longsdorf and Witherspoon on the 4x400 relay team that was third with a time of 3:35.40.

Defiance returns to action next Friday, February 27, when it competes in the Joe Banks Invite on the campus of Ohio Northern University.