The University of Central Arkansas’ track and field team’s performance at the Arkansas Invitational Friday, Jan. 14, in Fayetteville resulted in personal records for many athletes.

The teams competing alongside UCA were Oklahoma University, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma State, Arkansas-Little Rock, University of Arkansas, Oral Roberts, Allen Community College, Coffeyville Community College, Butler Community College, Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Alcorn State.

A few notable contenders from UCA’s track events were Niklas Iking, Jordan Atkins, Sierra Temple and Anna Bommes.

Iking placed 3rd with a 1:53.60 in the men’s 800M, Atkins placed 5th with an 8.13 in men’s 60M hurdles, Temple placed 6th with a 7.77 in women’s 60M hurdles and Bommes placed 4th with a 2:23.79 in the women’s 800M.

Kennedy Timmerman also made strides at the meet. Timmerman placed 7th with a PR of 10:27.10 in the women’s 3000M and placed 6th with a PR of 2:25.26 in the women’s 800M

“This was the first indoor meet for a lot of us this season, including myself, so it’s really exciting to get back into the swing of things,” Timmerman said. “Overall, I’m happy with the results, but there is still a lot of work to be done and many more miles to be put in. For the next meet, I’m hoping to be much more aggressive.”

For the field events, Michael Jackson placed 4th in men’s long jump with a 7.09m, and Natalie Louw placed 5th in women’s high jump with a 1.58m.

Louw and other UCA athletes shared similar feelings about the difficulty of coming back to a meet following UCA’s winter break.

“Overall, I do think we had a little bit of a rough start after the break. It’s tough when some of us didn’t have proper facilities or equipment over the break while being home,” Louw said. “I think it was a good meet in the sense where it got us all back in the game and a good building block for the rest of the season. I do believe we will have a pretty good season.”

Senior Tate Whaley said, “It was the first race for many of us, so we are calling it more of a rust buster.”

Whaley, along with Julian Haessner, Jaron Hamilton and Johnny Cordero, placed with personal records in the men’s 3000M. According to UCA Sports, Haessner placed 6th with a PR of 8:37.23, Hamilton placed 8th with an 8:51.32, Whaley placed 9th with a PR of 8:52.21, Parker Jackson placed 11th with a 9:01.36 and Cordero placed 13th with a PR of 9:06.06.

“In the 3000M, I went out with the mindset to win but sadly didn’t have it that day. A personal record is always nice, though,” Whaley said.

Whaley also placed 16th with a 2:49.07 in the men’s 1000M alongside teammates Tomas Thompson in 14th with a 2:47.12 and Parker Jackson in 15th with a 2:47.48.

“As a team, I am proud of how everyone did, but as we all know and talked about, we can do much better and have a lot of work to put in over these next few weeks,” Whaley said.

Timmerman said, “We’ll only get better from here.”

The Bears will take on their next meet at the Texas Tech Invitational in Lubbock, Texas, on Jan. 28 and 29.