Varsity Reds smash school records at Nova Scotia Indoor

January 17th, 2015 was an extremely busy day for the V-Reds Track and Field team seeing the team split in two.  One group headed to the Moncton JSA Open while the other group made the trip to Halifax to compete at the Nova Scotia Indoor.

At the Moncton JSA Open the team was lead by the field event athletes.  In the throws Luke Dillman established a new school record in the shot put throwing 12.09m, previously beating the record of 11.92m set by teammate Brad Carragher only 6 weeks ago.  Throwing a new personal best in the weight throw was Carragher with a throw of 13.50m.  These two have been swapping positions for top thrower on the UNB squad every meet and are no doubt going to continue to push each other to even higher levels. Currently they hold down the #1 and #2 spots in the AUS weight throw with Dillman edging out Carragher.

Also competing extremely well in Moncton were the high jumpers.  Kyle Lefort and Jordan Johnson tied for 2nd place both clearing 1.90m.  Matthew Kinch finished 5th in a seasonal best of 1.85m, and Evan Grant also with a seasonal best cleared 1.80m.  Current AUS rankings have four UNB athletes ranked in the top six places. 

The highlights from the men's team, though, came in Halifax as several school records were set at the Canada Games Centre track.  Daniel Brown finished first in the 300m, running 36.07s and breaking his school record of 36.49 set back on December 20th in Moncton.  Brown also ran the 600m finishing in third place in 1:22.84s.  Brown's times currently rank him second in the AUS in the 300m and 600m and tenth in the CIS in the 600m. 

Also breaking a school record was first-year Joshua Shanks who ran 8:52.81s in the 3000m.

And nearly breaking a record was Artabaz Nazari in the 60m. Nazari ran 7.13s to finish second in the 60m and just missed the school record of 7.12s.  He currently ranks fourth in the AUS in the 60m. 

"Moncton has arguably the best field event conditions in Atlantic Canada while Halifax has an excellent track," said UNB head coach Jason Reindl.

"We split the team so that all event groups could have the best chance at success and I am extremely pleased and proud with how it went.  We came out in the first set of AUS rankings in second just behind Dalhousie 160.5pts to 157.5pts with defending AUS champs StFX in third a few points back, and I have no doubt that it is going to be a battle come AUS champs. All three schools on the men's side are extremely strong and it is going to be an exciting final six weeks."

The team will have a quick turn around this week as they get in a few recovery workouts and refine some technical actions before leaving for Montreal on Thursday when the team will compete at the McGill Team Challenge in Montreal on the 23rd and 24th. At last year's event over 20 universities from across Canada competed at the event making it one of the largest in the country.