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Track racing into the record books

The Bradley track and field team set several school records last weekend at the two-day Gladstein Invitational hosted by Indiana University.

Highlighting day one of the meet, sophomore David Shadid broke his own school record in the 400m dash and an additional five Braves set personal-best marks.

Shadid finished third in the 400m dash fast section, with a time of 48.52 to overtake his previous record of 49.36. The sophomore set the record for the third time with the previous record standing for 36 years.

“A couple of years ago we were mainly focusing on cross country but since the addition of David we have been getting into the sprint events. He is an extremely hard worker and brings a new component to our track and field program,” head coach Darren Gauson said.

Junior Haran Dunderdale turned in his second-straight strong performance of the year to help lead the men’s team. One week after setting the school record in the 800m run, Dunderdale posted the second-best performance in school history in the mile with a time of 4:05.14, finishing the event second overall.

Other strong performances of day one included senior Patrick Campbell who placed fifth in the 3,000m run with a time of 8:16.96, and freshman Jake Hoffert who placed sixth in his first career running in the 3,000m with a time of 8:17.00.

There were also solid outings on the women’s side. Junior Hannah Witczak and senior Mackenzie Griffin set their career-best times in the 3,000m run for the second-straight week to lead the Braves. Witczak won the event with a time of 10:12.73, and Griffin placed third with a time of 10:15.83.

Senior Rachel Sudbury placed ninth in the mile run fast section, posting a time of 4:58.17.

The Braves continued their record setting ways in the second day of the invitational when an additional three school records were broken.

Shadid set his second record in two days by clocking a time of 22.45 in the 200m to finish fifth in the event and surpassing the previous mark of 22.60 which stood for 28 years.

“Breaking the records to me just means that I’m giving everything I can for the team. I’m a Peoria kid so I grew up watching Bradley athletics and just to be able to have my name in the record books is a very big honor for me and I’m very proud of it,” Shadid said.

The final record set on the day was in the 4×800 relay as Dunderdale teamed with freshmen Alec Hartman, Sandy Freeland, and junior Daniel Gagne to finish the race in a time of 7:40.51, topping the program’s previous record of 7:47.47 by nearly seven seconds.

Only three members of women’s team ran in individual events on Saturday. Freshman Keina Suggs set her personal-best time of 26.67 in the 200m dash, while freshman Emma Makowski and senior Casey Kramer posted times of 2:23.20 and 2:28.36 in the 800m run.

“In terms of the men and women combined I’m proud of how they performed at the Gladstein Invitational,” Gauson said. “Moving forward we just want to continue to get better and have more performances like we did at Indiana and be prepared as best we can for the MVC championship at the end of February.”

The Bradley men’s and women’s track and field teams will return to action on Feb. 5 and 6 at the Meyo Invitational at the University of Notre Dame along with the Olivet Nazarene Invite on Feb. 6.

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