ATLANTA, Ga. – Gardner-Webb's Track & Field squads had a busy weekend at the 2015 Georgia Tech Invitational, competing well against some of the best programs in the southeast on Friday and Saturday.

The two programs combined for nine top-10 finishes and 21 finishes inside the top-20.

Claire Cates took ninth in the women's 3,000m Steeplechase in fine fashion, breaking her personal record by 20 seconds and missing the Gardner-Webb school mark by only nine seconds. Cates, a junior from Hillsborough, N.C., finished her race in 11:29.04 – another in a continuing stretch of improvement this season.

Krista Chauvin shined once again in the women's hammer throw, narrowly missing her own school record with a distance of 58 meters on Friday afternoon (190'03"). Chauvin, who has placed in the top-2 in every outdoor event this spring, missed her own school record by just half a meter. It marked the second-best throw of her career, and the fourth consecutive week she has topped 57 meters.

Chauvin's effort placed second, just off the pace of Georgia State's LaPorscha Wells.

Freshman Natasha Akbarizadeh also placed in the top-10, throwing the hammer 50.77 meters (166'7") to finish sixth. Gardner-Webb joined Louisville as the only programs with more than one thrower in the top-6 of the women's hammer event.

The women's 4x400m relay team of Jordan Davis, Merideth Byl, Ivy Harris and Sarah Perkins finished 10th with a time of 3:58.44, the top time in the event for Gardner-Webb this season outdoors.

Megan Melton also recorded a top-10 finish on the women's side, tying her outdoor PR in the pole vault with a height of 3.57 meters. Melton finished 10th in the event.

Gardner-Webb's women's team had top-20 efforts from Perkins (17th - 400m Hurdles), Sarah Mitchell (13th - Shot Put; 13th - Discus), Amanda Hall (15th - javelin) and Byl (16th - javelin; 19th - shot put) individually.

Nathan Padfield's fifth-place finish in the men's hammer throw highlighted Gardner-Webb's efforts this weekend, with the LaVergne, Tenn., senior taking that spot with a distance of 56.73 meters.

Hurdler Josh Wembolua advanced to the finals in the 110 meter hurdles Saturday and finished sixth among college competitors with a time of 15.18 seconds. He ran a time of 15.13 seconds in the preliminaries, which was the 15th-best time heading into the finals.

Wembolua was a busy man on the track, helping the men's 4x100m relay team to a seventh-place finish (42.86) and the 4x400m relay team to a 10th-place finish in a time of 3:20.60. Marquise Evans-Whitehart, Joseph Martin and Malik Crawford joined Wembolua on the 4x100 team. Martin, Crawford and Marquel Woodard teamed up with Wembolua in the 4x400 race.

Ben Bell (15th - long jump; 17th - shot put), Jordan Smith (12th - discus; 14th - shot put); Clay Hamilton (16th - shot put) and Padfield (18th - discus) each recorded top-20 finishes as well for the men's team.

Up next for Gardner-Webb is the 2015 Carolinas Cup on April 23 in Rock Hill, S.C.