Northwest Nazarene track and field took advantage of their home meet on Friday and Saturday to put on a show for their local fans at Bohner Track for the Northwest Nazarene Invitational. Not a seat was empty in the stands — the warm weather and high energy created a competitive environment for the Nighthawks to take home 27 new personal records and fourteen first-place finishes.

"What a great two-day meet," said Head Coach Danny Bowman. "Our athletes performed very well at home. Lots of personal records and top 10 performances — I'm very humbled to be a part of this program."

The Nighthawks women dominated, taking home multiple first-place finishes. For women's field, Nizhoni Buckway won the javelin event with 39.06m and pole vaulters Kinsey Yenor and Julie Cheney went one-two in their event. Yenor cleared the bar at 3.75m and Cheney at 3.60m. 

Freshman Miya Koch won the high jump event with a jump of 1.65m, coming just short of improving on her school record she set last week in Irvine. Sophomore Laine DeJong won the long jump with a distance of 5.35m.

Long-awaited goals came to fruition when junior Ellie Alberts snagged first in the triple jump with a new PR of 10.75m after getting second in the long jump with a PR of 5.23m. 

"I was seeded third, so I was just hoping to be competitive with the girls above me," said Alberts about the triple jump event. "Earlier this week, Coach Eastman had me make some tweaks to my phasing and I applied that today. I didn't expect to win, but I knew how close my PR was to the other girls. I wasn't really thinking about my positioning — I cared most about my marks and the top placement just came."

"I'm looking forward to building off of my two new PRs because they've been a long time coming. I'm determined to not be complacent — now that I know what I'm capable of I want to keep the momentum going for the next meets."

Women's sprints continued the winning spirit when Abbey Wood won the 100m in 12.06 seconds while the 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams took home the gold as well.

Edging past second place by a lean, sophomore Kalli Brence took home first in a gutsy 400m race. She won the event in 58.78 seconds, just a few hundredths from her PR. 

"I was not expecting the time that I ran at all," said Brence. "I was very nervous and anxious for the race. But, I felt pretty confident going into it and am super excited to strive for the 56 second 400m that has been my goal for the past few years." 

The Nighthawks men wasted no time collecting top finishes as well. Senior Colton Burr won the hammer throw with a toss of 55.17m, putting him 2nd in NNU history. Steven Schmidt placed second in the heptathlon with a total score of 6378 points after winning the high jump, long jump, pole vault, and javelin multi events. 

Gerohm Rihari won the long jump with a distance of 6.69m, closely followed by teammate Josh Johnson with 6.64m. Rihari also won the high jump at 2.00m (6'6.75").

"The meet went really well and I was happy with how I did. I was not expecting to jump as well as I did in high jump, that's for sure," remarked Rihari. "It's been crazy to me because in high school I was jumping 6' most meets and the occasional 6'2", then I took a 2-year gap after high school. Out of nowhere, I decided to do track and field collegiately, and now I'm jumping higher than I thought ever possible. 

"It's been really cool to see, and it makes me feel like I can keep jumping higher and higher!" added Rihari. 

Freshman Hunter Braseth swept the sprint events, winning gold in the 100m dash with 10.84 seconds and the 200m dash with 21.76 seconds, both new personal records. Braseth won the 200m race by one-hundredth of a second.

"I was super excited and happy with my results today! I had no idea that I would run as fast as I did in the 100m. I think that was the best 100m I've ever had throughout all of the phases of the race" said Braseth.

"In the 200m, I was really excited to have some great competition from Lewis-Clark State College. That was the narrowest margin I've ever beaten someone by in a race and it was so much fun."

"Overall, today was a great day on the track and I'm really proud of how myself and everyone else was able to come out and have some outstanding performances in front of our friends and families," Braseth mentioned.

The Nighthawks will look to keep their competitive momentum rolling when they compete at Utah State University on April 8th and 9th for the Aggie Invitational.