The Aurora University men's track and field team won Saturday's Benedictine Eagle Invitational with 156 points, well clear of regional powers Illinois Wesleyan and Carthage.  Three school records were broken and a host more of personal bests were set on a warm and windy day in Lisle.
 
This space has previously covered the definition of the track team term "BC record"-- a school best that was set before head coach Ryan Chapman took the reins in 2009.  The term is hurtling towards linguistic extinction, but a handful of BC records remain.  On Saturday (with the prior record holder in attendance), one of the peskiest--the 1500, held by Tommy Ferguson '09-- finally went down.  Sophomore Calvin Robinson took third in 4:02.53, running perfectly even 400m splits of 64.3, 64.8, 65.0 before closing his final 300 meters in 48.0 seconds.  He was closely followed by teammate Drew Schmitt, who was fourth in 4:06.83; those are the two fastest times in the NACC this year.
 
Also in the distances: junior co-captain Nick Cole was fifth in the 5000 meters, running 15:59.85 and getting his first career win over conference rival Andrew Coop of Concordia-Wisconsin.
In the short sprints, the combination of warm temperatures and fortuitously directed tailwinds led to blazing fast times.  The duo of freshman Terry Moore and senior Wade Robinson took full advantage of the conditions to set NACC-leading marks.  Moore took second in the 200 in 21.98 seconds, with Robinson almost exactly a meter behind at 22.09.  While they benefitted from strong tailwinds of 8.6 meters per second (Moore) and 5.8 mps (Robinson), those are the two fastest times in school history regardless of wind and rank first and third in the NACC.  In the 100, the situation was reversed as Robinson was second in 11.02 and Moore was third in 11.05-- the two fastest times in the conference and a few hundredths shy of the school record.
 
Freshman Deven Thompson had the two most nationally significant marks of the day.  He smashed the school record in the triple jump at 14.26m (46 feet, 9.5 inches), hopping, skipping, and jumping his way to the #12 spot in Division III.  And Thompson was no slouch in the long jump, winning with a US #22 jump of 6.92m (22-8.5).  Both marks are wind-legal.
 
Throwers Chad Hensley, Petey Claus, C.J. Schutt, and Christian Mayen all left Saturday's meet with season bests.  In the shot put, Hensley (14.40m/47-3) and Claus (13.59/44-7) launched enormous season bests and are now ranked third and fifth in the NACC, respectively.  Claus's fellow senior, Christian Mayen, uncorked a massive personal best of 40.30m (132-3) in the hammer, good for #5 in the conference.  And sophomore CJ Schutt tossed the discus 42.65m (139-11), another personal best and #2 in the NACC.
 
Sophomore Kalmon Stokes (Schutt's teammate on the AU basketball squad) ran two outstanding 400 meter races.  He won the intermediate hurdles in 55.89 seconds, and anchored the 4x400m relay with a 49.6 split.  Joining Stokes on that relay were middle distance runners Kyle Kayzar, Matt Meyers, and Jaime Charles; their time of 3:24.10 is the fastest by a Spartan quartet since 2005.
 
High jumpers and pole vaulters will compete next on Thursday, April 17 at Concordia-Chicago, and the rest of the squad will travel three hours south to compete at Millikin University on Friday, April 18.