University Park, PA - The Mustangs had many monumental performances at the Penn State National Open this weekend. Five more school records, an additional five U SPORTS Automatic Qualifications were achieved as well as several personal bests and seasons bests showing we are trending in the right direction.

Friday evening was highlighted by Kenneth West soaring to a new personal best in his last jump of the competition with a monstrous leap of 7.90m to win the competition. This puts Kenneth #1 in U SPORTS now and ALL-TIME. This also is a new Western record, breaking Taylor Ehrhardt's world class record from 2013 by 3 cm. This result would also be #3 in current NCAA division one rankings.
 
The Saturday highlight was the Women's 4x400m relay of Tyra Boug, Tieghan Wallace, Hallee Knelsen, and Favour Okpali running a time of 3:38.61, a time that would shatter the previous school record set in 2013 of 3:43.88 by over five seconds. These women also broke 3 records within the relay. 

Tyra Boug - 1st leg time of 54.4 broke the 56.0 record
Tieghan Wallace - 2nd leg time of 55.2 broke the 55.5 record
Favour Okpali ran 52.7 to break her own 53.5 previous best
Favour's 52.7 is also our all-time record split.
 
The Western hurdle crew stood their ground against a competitive D1 field Friday evening. Both the women's and men's races had a Mustang in the final, with Tyra Boug winning the women's race in a school record time of 8.23 seconds. Rachel Watson was just shy of the final, running 8.73 seconds. In the men's race, Ayden Blain finished 7th in a time of 8.21 seconds, just two one-hundredths off of his personal best. Adam Exley was two places out from the final, running 8.30 seconds.

In addition to the 4 x 400m record setting performance there was a strong showing for the sprints crew. In the 60m on the women's side, Tieghan Wallace ran a season's best of 7.72, and Vivian Ogor came second overall with a season's best of 7.39. In the men's 60m Aaron Thompson ran a season's best of 6.77, and Thomas Helland ran a lifetime best of 6.89. In the women's 400m, Favour Okpali ran a staggering time of 53.13 to cement her a second-place finish Favour also took silver in the 400m with a new school record of 53.13 in the non-U SPORTS distance. Also at York University, Kwame Karangwa ran a lifetime best of 35.18 to win the men's open 300m.

In the middle distance events, Ben started things off with PBs in both the 800 (1:53.10) and 600 (1:20.51). Josh Duckman and Aaron Thompson ran PBs of 1:18.75 and 1:18.99 respectively in the 600, with Josh achieving USports auto qualifying standard in the process. Justin Sanders (2:26.91), Tom Boers (2:27.68 PB), and Kyle Koyanagi (2:28.88) had a strong showing in the 1000. At the Midwest Classic in Indiana, Alex Warren and Vincent Moore each had two PBs, in both the 800 (1:52.55 and 1:53.90, respectively) and 600 (1:21.25, 1:21.04) adding to the depth of the 4 x 800. On the women's side, Hallee Knelsen (1:30.99), Tieghan Wallace (1:31.04), and Cora McQuinn (1:35.94) all ran PBs in the 600. In the 1000, Chloe Coutts (2:45.64) and Ella Bottomley (2:53.81) also ran huge PBs, with Chloe hitting U SPORTS standard. 
The long distance squad was in good form this past weekend with some U SPORTS AQ times, as well as some season's best performances from the majority of the athletes. Highlights include:
 
Justin Sanders Mile 4:10.52 SB
Tom Boers Mile 4:10.63 SB
Marcel Scheele 8:28.72 SB
Chloe Coutts Mile 4:44.51 PB + AQ
Sophie Coutts Mile 4:44.98 SB + AQ
Anna Carruthers 9:34.62 SB
Olivia Roussel 9:39.45 SB

In field events, in addition to Kenneth's huge performance Chloe Knox achieved a new personal best of 5.77 meters, finishing 6th overall in the long jump. In the women's triple jump, Chloe Knox placed 5th with a jump of 12.24 meters, while Rofiat Agboola secured 7th place with a season's best mark of 11.88 meters.
In pole vault Ian Dafoe placed 2nd with 4.60m and Phoebe Skipp as 8th with a vault of 3.50m. In high jump Tara Johannink placed 5th with 1.65m and Zach Courtney was 8th with 1.93m.

Winston Clarke finished 2nd in the heptathlon with a personal best score and AQ with 4916 points. On his way to this score he set indoor personal bests in the long jump and pole vault and the rest of his events were very solid. This result moves Winston into the 7^th  spot in the country.

The Mustangs look ahead to the Windsor Team Challenge on Feb. 6 and 7 and to compete at the home of this years OUA and U SPORTS Championships.