Dec. 6, 2019 - The Concordia-Chicago men's track and field team got an early start to their 2020 indoor season tonight with competition at the Olivet Nazarene University Holiday Invite in Bourbonnais, IL. The low-key, non-scoring meet gave many members of the team a chance to shake off the rust of the offseason as well as evaluate their progress after the first few weeks of practice.

For the men, the experience of seniors Tyrique Thomas and Thomas McNamara rose to the top this evening. Thomas began the evening by recording a career-best time of 8.61 seconds in winning the 60-meter hurdles. Thomas' previous best before tonight had been 8.69 two years ago at Olivet, but had just enough to hold off his two closest competitors from North Central College.

Later on, McNamara had his first big moment of the new season in the 3,000 meters. He ran a 9:02.46 that not only beat his previous (outdoor) best 3K time by six seconds but also bettered Ethan McBee's school-record indoor time from the 2012 season by 16 seconds. McNamara finished sixth out of 13 runners and also placed fifth in the mile run with a time of 4:37.90.

The 200-meter dash featured the highest amount of CUC participation with five runners among the field of 26. All five finished in the upper half of the bracket, led by Adam Gray in second place at 23.65 seconds and Brandon Ellis in third at 23.74.

In the throwing events, freshman Shane Allen finished tenth in the shot put with a mark of 38' 7 1/2". The results from the weight throw showed Allen in sixth with a 42' 9" and Jacob Mills in tenth with a 34' 5". 

"This was a very good night for us in terms of getting some feedback from what we've been doing in our workouts," said CUC head coach Steve Belanger. "We're still very much a work in progress, but we're happy about what was accomplished this evening."