ALLENDALE, MICH. -- Juniors Jacob Payne (LaPorte, Ind./LaPorte) and Jonathan Phillips (Royal Center, Ind./Pioneer Junior-Senior) set school indoor records in the pole vault and the 3,000-meter run to lead the Trine University men's indoor track & field team at the Mike Lints Alumni Meet hosted by Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich.
The Thunder finished the meet with 14 team points to place 11th of 16 teams. Host school GVSU came in first with 167.5 points and Lewis (Ill.) University was second with 54 points and the University of St. Francis (Ill.) was third with 53 points.
Payne cleared the bar in a height of 15' 11.00" (4.85 meters) to place fourth and surpassed the previous Trine all-time mark of 15' 1.00" that was held by John Daniel set back during the 2014-15 indoor season.
In the 3000-meter run, Phillips posted a time of 8:40.10 to come in 11th place and set a school indoor record. The previous record was set by Austin Ganger during the 2013-14 season and a mark of 8:48.
In addition to Payne, other top performances in the field events included an eighth-place effort in the weight throw by junior Mitch Martin (Monroe, Mich./Monroe) who had a distance of 54' 10.00" (16.71 meters).
Junior Nick Gerber (Goshen, Ind./Goshen) recorded a pair of 10th-place finishes in both the shot put and the weight throw. In the shot put, Gerber had a toss of 46' 0.50" (14.03 meters) and had a mark of 53' 6.50" (16.32 meters) in the weight throw.
In running events, junior Jasper Bassett (Auburn, Ind./DeKalb) posted the top overall finish for Trine with a fourth-place effort in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.27 seconds. Fellow junior Zach Markley (Winamac, Ind./Winamac) also competed in the event and placed in the top-15 at 14th place in a time of 50.24 seconds.
Freshman Jack Beakas (Auburn, Ind./DeKalb) recorded a pair of team points with a top-10 finish in the 5000-meter run by crossing the finish line in a time of 15:38.20 which was good enough for seventh place overall. Teammate Robert Lewis Duke (Greentown, Ind./Eastern) finished seven spots back in 14th place with a time of 15:59.24 and senior Collin Elek (Osceola, Ind./Penn) finished just outside the top-15 in 16th place after posting a time of 16:09.54.
Freshman Derek Miller (Shipshewana, Ind./Westview) placed 10th in the one-mile run after completing the event in a time of 4:21.02.
Sophomore Jacob Root (Vicksburg, Va./Vicksburg) finished in the top-15 in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.11 seconds which was good enough for 13th place.
In relay action, the team of Markley, juniors Gregory Littlejohn (LaPorte, Ind./LaPorte), Eric Townsend (Greenwood, Ind./Roncalli) and freshman Logan Deel (Bryan, Ohio/Bryan) finished eighth in the 4x400-meter relay with a time of 3:25.22.
Trine will host the two-day Don and Riley Zimmer Indoor Classic on Friday-Saturday, Feb. 2-3. The meet on Friday is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m.
