Men’s Track and Field Places Pair of Relay Teams and Five Individuals on Indoor All-Conference Teams

Men’s Track and Field Places Pair of Relay Teams and Five Individuals on Indoor All-Conference Teams

3/1/2018 5:37:00 PM | Track & Field

Lumberjacks place 13 on Southland Indoor All-Conference Teams

By: Kevin Meyer | Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations

Full Southland Conference Release

FRISCO, Texas – Five individual medalists and both SFA relay teams were named to the Southland Indoor Track and Field All-Conference Teams on Thursday, per a release from the conference office. Seniors Hunter Key, Tedrick Hawkins and Kerry Gleason were joined by juniors Isaiah Pittman an Antonio Ruiz as individual honorees, having finished within the top three in any of the individual events at the 2018 Southland Conference Indoor Championships last weekend in Birmingham, Alabama.

Also earning the honors were the 4x400 relay team, which included Hawkins, Gleason, Charles Fentress and Drake Murphy, and the distance medley relay team of Fentress, Murphy, Larry Deramus and Erick Rotich.

Ruiz was the top individual finisher of the bunch, winning the men's pole vault with a mark of 5.50m (18'-0.5"), a new personal best. Ruiz is now a two-time Southland All-Conference Indoor honoree, having earned Second Team honors last season. Key also earned his second straight Indoor All-Conference accolade in the heptathlon, where he took second with a new personal best of 5238.

Hawkins and Gleason raced to second and third place finishes in the 400m dash to earn Second Team and Third Team honors, respectively. Hawkins set a new PR time with 48.18 and was named to the second Team for the second consecutive season, while Gleason matched his PR with 48.63 to earn Third Team honors.

In the long jump, Isaiah Pittman leapt to Second Team honors with a distance of 7.32m (24'-0.25"), a new personal best for the junior and his second consecutive Indoor All-Conference selection.

The men's distance medley relay team race to a second place finish, as Rotich anchored the relay and passed two other teams in the final lap to secure a runners-up finish and Second Team honors for the group. In the concluding event of the two-day meet, SFA's 4x400 relay again came through with final lap dramatics, as Hawkins passed the team from Abilene Christian on the final lap to win the event, building on strong legs from Fentress, Gleason and Murphy.

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Southland Conference indoor track & field superlatives are nominated and voted upon by the league's head coaches. Voting for oneself or one's own athletes is not permitted. First, Second and Third Team All-Conference distinction is given to the first, second and third place finishers in each championship event final.

-SFA-