Results Through Day Two

WEST CHESTER, Pa. – Brady Wert claimed the league title in the decathlon and the Slippery Rock University men's track and field team scored 16 points on day two of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference Championships, hosted by West Chester University. The Rock sits in sixth-place in the team standings heading into the final day of competition.

Shippensburg leads the men's team standings with 58 points after two days of competition. Lock Haven trails by just one point at 57, while East Stroudsburg sits third with 39 points. There is a big gap to fourth-place Millersville and West Chester, each with 18 points, and SRU comes in sixth with 16.

Wert scored 10 of those points, a nominal margin when you consider the effort required to win the 10-event decathlon. The senior multi-event standout topped the field of 10 competitors with a final score of 6,444 points. Wert was the only finisher to reach the NCAA provisional qualifying standard.

The remaining six points came from the hammer throw, where Chris Warning placed fourth with a throw of 5390 meters. He was joined in eighth-place by Joseph Kelly, who landed a throw of 49.62 meters to score in his first collegiate conference championships. Joel Peters, who entered the event with the second-best mark in the league, fouled out of the competition.

The remaining top performance for SRU Friday came in the preliminary rounds of the track events.

Kevin Jewel led three Rock runners into the finals of the 800-meter run. Jewel posted the third-best qualifying time of 1:52.83. Phil Rector was the fourth-fastest qualifier at 1:53.50, while Jason Jamieson was the seventh-best at 1:54.50.

Ethan Geisler continued his impressive freshman season, posting the fourth-best time in the 400-meter hurdle prelims with a season-best mark of 53.90 seconds. He was joined by Dan Hedglin with the sixth-best time at 54.47 seconds.

Hedglin also qualified for the finals in the 110-meter hurdles, posting the fifth-best time at 15.29 seconds.

The 4x100-meter relay team of Mason McLaughlin, James Sims, Geisler and Hedglin posted the sixth-fastest qualifying time with a mark of 41.97 seconds.

Sims narrowly missed the finals in the 400-meter dash, posting a season-best time of 48.28 seconds to place 10th in the prelims. Six athletes posted NCAA provisional qualifying times in the event, while two of those athletes hit the automatic mark.

The championships will conclude Saturday with the finals in all remaining events. Competition is set to begin in the late morning and run through the afternoon.