Chauvin Smashes School Hammer Record Friday Afternoon At Winthrop/adidas Invitational
March 27, 2015 | Track & Field
ROCK HILL, S.C. – Krista Chauvin smashed her own school record in the women's hammer throw Friday afternoon at the 2015 Winthrop/adidas Invitational, part of another strong day for Gardner-Webb.
Chauvin (Seekonk, Mass. / Seekonk HS) threw the hammer a distance of 57.78 meters Friday (189'7"), more than three meters better than her previous school mark, set just last Friday at the Charlotte 49er Invitational.
Chauvin topped her previous personal best as well, which was previously 57.57 meters at UMass- Dartmouth – where she was named conference Field Athlete of the Year outdoors in 2013 and earned NCAA Division III All-America honors in the hammer with a fifth-place finish.
Chauvin's distance Friday afternoon ranks as the 26th-best overall in NCAA Division I this season and as the seventh-best in the NCAA Division I East Region. She now has the seventh and 13th-best distances in the hammer among NCAA Division I East Region throwers. She has the top two distances in the Big South Conference this outdoor season.
Freshman standout Natasha Akbarizadeh (Maple Ridge, British Columbia / Garibaldi HS) continued her strong start outdoors as well, finishing third in the hammer with a distance of 50.30 meters (165'0.50") just two meters off her personal record set last week.
Ben Bell (Greensboro, N.C. / Caldwell Academy) rallied in the 10th discipline of the Decathlon to capture first place, distancing himself from Western Carolina's Christian Carswell in a hard-fought competition.
Bell, who entered the final five disciplines in first place, fell behind Carswell after the javelin, but raced to a second-place finish in the 1,500 meter run to finish with 6,125 points – just shy of his own personal record set at Winthrop last season. He point total was 94 points in front of Carswell.
Bell finished the 1,500 meter run in 4:45.67, just two seconds slower than his personal best in that event.
Nathan Padfield was strong in the men's hammer, teaming with Chauvin for a Gardner-Webb sweep on Friday. The LaVergne, Tenn., native won the men's event with a throw of 57.40 meters (188'4"), less than a meter shy of his personal best and three meters better than any other college competitor at Winthrop Friday afternoon.
Gardner-Webb had several more top-10 finishes Friday, with Clay Hamilton taking 10th in the men's shot put with a distance of 13.14 meters (43'1.50") and Kayin Mujahid finishing sixth in the women's high jump with a height of 1.60 meters (5'3").
Sarah Mitchell captured eighth in the women's shot put (12.44 meters), Megan Melton finished fifth in the pole vault (3.35 meters) – and Elise Moffatt took seventh in the pole vault with the same height cleared.
Two runners qualified for Saturday finals, with Jordan Davis just missing a personal record in the 400m dash, running a time of 57.90 seconds to finish second overall Friday.
Josh Wembolua finished eighth in the men's 110 meter hurdles with a time of 15.54 seconds.
The action resumes Saturday morning at 8:00 am with the women's 10,000 meter run. Results can be followed live at the provided link, courtesy of TFMeetPro.
