SOUTH BEND, Ind. - The Boilermakers broke three relay school records on Saturday at the Alex Wilson Invitational. Purdue has broken at least one school record in five of the teams' last six meets.
"It was a good day," head coach Lonnie Greene said. "When you start to run fast, especially in the relay setting, it's exciting. We'll need to run a little faster in the 4x4 to make the national championships, though right now the men have a spot. I think we have another two or two and a half seconds in us and I think our women can run much faster, too. We will have another shot to lower our times, but if it all ended now, we're in the meet in the DMR and men's mile relay. I'm excited for the kids and how they're running. We came specifically to achieve the things we achieved this weekend. We competed well. It was a very good trip."
The women's distance medley relay was the first Purdue group to take down a school record Saturday. The team of Kiara McIntosh, Taylor Dunlap, Vanessa McLeod and Katie Hoevet shattered an eight-year old school record set by Laura Farley, Lauren Scott, Kristin Phillips and Corrie Whishner, who ran 11:17.96, recording a time of 11:07.20 to take fifth overall. Six of the top 13 times in the country this season were in the race. The time ranks 11th in the country after Saturday's meets.
The next school record to fall was the women's 4x400m relay, which fell for the third time this season, though this time by a slightly different group. Aarin Jones, Brionna Thomas, Carmiesha Cox and Symone Black ran a time of 3:37.35 to break Jones, Cox, Black and Dunlap's record of 3:38.21 from Feb. 7, also run at Notre Dame. The Boilermaker team finished second in the race and has the nation's 22nd-fastest time this season.
The final record to fall was in the final event of the day, the men's 4x400m relay. Chris Arvia, Obokhare Ikpefan, Kendall Frederick and Nicholas Parks broke the 27-year old school record of 3:08.80 set by Cris Dishman, John Walker, Gerald Bell and Sam Stotts, after winning the event with a time of 3:08.07. The time ranks 14th in the country, though is 11th nationally when duplicate teams from the same schools are removed.
Elsewhere on the track, Makayla Earnheart ran a personal best in the 400m dash. She posted a time of 56.14 seconds to take seventh. Shantyra Delaney was 0.09 of a second off her PR in the 60m hurdles where she took fourth. She posted a time of 8.74 seconds. Chukwuebuka Enekwechi threw 19.17m (62-10.75) in the shot put to take second overall. That mark was his second best of the season.
"We're running well late in the indoor season," Greene added. "When you start to run well as a unit, that's important. If we can continue to do that, we'll compete well at Big Tens and it bodes well for what we can do individually as well. That's a very important piece heading into the next couple weeks."
The Boilermakers are set to head to Geneva, Ohio, for the Big Ten Championships next weekend. The meet is scheduled for Friday and Saturday.