Men Open Outdoor Season with Eighth Place Finish

TERRE HAUTE, IND. – The Defiance College men's track and field team placed in the eighth spot out of 10 teams in the Rose-Hulman Early Bird Invitational to kick off outdoor competition on Saturday.

Defiance scored 31.5 points, better than Triton College (23) and St. Mary-of-the-Woods (8). Rose-Hulman scored 269 points en route to cruising to a 170-point win over DePauw (99).

Freshman Vince Jackson (Mason) continued the momentum he built during the indoor season by winning his first outdoor meet in the high jump with a leap of 1.84 meters (6 feet, 0.5 inches).

Fellow freshman Cody Drumm-Turner (Homer, Mich.) opened up the outdoor season with a pair of top five finishes. He finished in the fourth spot in the triple jump with a best of 12.15 meters (39 feet, 10.5 inches) on his final jump of the afternoon.

Also adding points for the sprinters was freshman Gabriel Caris (Lambertville, Mich./Bedford), who placed seventh in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.81 seconds.

In the throws, senior Joshua Petro (Ocala, Fla./The Villages) started his senior outdoor campaign on the right foot, throwing a mark of 50.35 meters (165 feet, 2 inches). Junior Andrew Fahler (Wellington) also placed eighth in the hammer with a throw of 42.82 meters (140 feet, 6 inches).

Junior Javier Castillo (Nogales, Ariz.) added a sixth-place finish in the discus with a toss of 39.73 meters (130 feet, 4 inches), while also finishing in the top 10 in the hammer throw, placing 10^th with a throw of 40.71 meters (133 feet, 7 inches).

The Yellow Jackets are set to return to action on Saturday, Mar. 24 with a trip to the Indiana Wesleyan Invitational. The meet is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.