The Aurora University men's track and field team dominated the Millikin University Big Blue Invitational on Friday, winning going away with 215 points.

Spartans won four events, set a school record, and set a host of personal bests. Freshman Austen Stewart wrestled the school record in the high jump from his teammate Loren Iwanicki, clearing 2.00m (6-6.75) for the first time. After finishing the indoor season ranked 50th in the country, Stewart has the #21 high jump in DIII and looks to climb higher on the national list.

Stewart's classmate Deven Thompson won the long jump (6.76/22-2.25) and took second in the triple (13.87/45-6.25), but most exciting was his season debut in the 4x100 meter relay. Thompson joined Terry Moore, Wes Heniff, and Wade Robinson to get the stick around the track in 43.18 seconds, a season best and the #1 time in the NACC this spring.

Spartans racked up dozens of points in the distances, taking the top two spots in the steeplechase and 1500 and filling up the scoring places in the 800 and 5k.

Senior Drew Schmitt aggressively led the 1500 for 800 meters before first-year Matt Meyers ran away to win by three seconds in 4:07.44, a personal best and the #3 time in the NACC, behind Schmitt and Calvin Robinson. Spartans now hold the top five 1500 times in the conference this spring. Robinson set a personal best in the 800m, running 1:59.97 for third place-- that makes him the fifth Spartan this spring to break two minutes.

Junior Nick Cole (10:00.67) and freshman Ben Ervin (10:10.98) set season bests to go 1-2 in the 3000 meter steeplechase, and sophomore Nick Quiroz (16:12.24) and Luke Miller (16:19.79) did the same to go 2-3 in the 5000. Cole's time is #2 in the NACC.

In a much shorter race with much more frequent hurdles, freshman Taylor Coleman ran a personal best of 15.83 (NACC #5) to take second in the 110 meter high hurdles.

In the field, sophomore Collin Craft set two large personal bests in the horizontal jumps: 6.00m (19-8.25) in the long, and 12.25m (40-4) in the triple. Chad Hensley missed his PR in the shot put by an agonizing centimeter, launching it 14.39m (47-2.5). And his fellow thrower CJ Schutt won the discus with a throw of 42.26m (138-8).

A few athletes competed at Concordia-Chicago on Thursday afternoon. Sophomore Kalmon Stokes particularly shone, leaping the #2 mark in the conference in the long jump (6.70/21-11.75) and running 54.48 to set a school record in the 400 meter hurdles.

A small group of sprinters and middle distance runners will compete on Friday and Saturday at the Drake Relays, one of the biggest track meets in the United States. The rest of the squad will do their final tuneup before the conference championship on Friday at the Benedictine Twilight meet.