The Bulldogs went into the Vanderbilt Invitational looking to perform well, but they had no idea they would make the kind of impact they did this weekend.
Mississippi State’s track and field team set a total of 34 new personal bests for the team, and broke three school records over the course of the weekend.
“This was such a fantastic weekend for us all the way around,” MSU Coach Steve Dudley said. “We had 34 new PR’s set, and three broke school records. We had several people who posted scores that might even be enough to qualify them for nationals, and we are only in the second week of the season. The indoor season goes by so quickly, and we are already one third of the way through. We have to take advantage of these next few meets, because nationals are right around the corner.”
Senior Haley Reynolds, owner of the second-best throw in school history, broke the school record in the shot put with a toss of 14.99m. She broke Nicola Wilson’s 2006 record of 14.97m.
Junior Tiffany Flynn shattered the school record in the triple jump. She leapt 13.29m to take the record and win the event. She set another personal best in the 60m hurdles where she came in second with a time of 8.31. That gave her fifth place in Mississippi State history.
Junior Mia Meydrich took 10 seconds off of her mile run, and dropped her time to 4:49:12 and put her in second place. Shannon Fair and Emma Tucker also dropped new personal-bests in the mile, running times of 4:59.16 and 5:02.30.
Sophomore Alon Lewis broke her personal record in the 400m run with a 56.18 time. Senior Efion Price broke her own record in the 800m run with a time of 2:08.69.
For the men, Willie Reed set a new personal best in the 60m hurdle with a time of 8.11, which gave him fifth place.
Freshman Daniel Nixon beat his personal record in the 800m run with a time of 1:51.23 and came in third place. His record is fourth in the MSU records.
In the 4×400 relay, MSU had two squads compete. The group of Juston water, Phillip Smith, Stephan James and Rasheed Tatham took second place with a time of 3:09.02.
The second team, consisting of Charles Taylor, Brian Evans, Dustin James II and Joshua Willingham, came in ninth place with a time of 3:15.02.
The Bulldogs run again next weekend when they travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas for the Razorback Invitational.
