Yellow Jacket Men Sixth After Day 1 of HCAC Championships

TERRE HAUTE, IND. -- The Defiance College men's track and field team sits in the sixth spot after day one of the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship meet with seven points.

Junior Javier Castillo (Nogales, Ariz.) led Defiance on the opening day with a fifth-place finish in the shot put. His toss of 14.63 meters (47 feet, 11 inches). That throw was a personal best by 0.6 meters, and moved Castillo into fifth all-time in DC history. Junior James Baranoski Jr. also finished ninth, narrowly missing the points.

Freshman Cody Drumm-Turner scored the other three points for Defiance on day one, as he jumped a personal-best triple jump of 12.21 meters (40 feet, 1 inch). 

Switching to the track, freshman Gabriel Caris (Lambertville, Mich./Bedford) ran a PR time of 50.65 seconds in the 400-meter dash, which qualifies him for tomorrow's final with the sixth-fastest preliminary time and the fifth-best run in school history.

Several other Yellow Jackets ran personal bests despite not qualifying for tomorrow's final, including freshman Jordan Latham (100 meter dash), junior Daren Gies (800 meter run), junior Brandon Zartman (400 meter dash), and Drumm-Turner (200 meter dash).

The Yellow Jackets look to continue to move up the leaderboard on Saturday as the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships wrap up at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind. The meet is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m.