Despite their squad being split up between two meets this week, the Central track and field teams found success in both Iowa and Massachusetts on Saturday.

For the second time already during the indoor season, junior Peyton Steffen established a new program standard in the 800-meter run at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational in Boston. Steffen clocked in at 2 minutes, 13.28 seconds to take control of the indoor 800-meter run mark. She finished 85th in a field of over 200 athletes, including professionals. Steffen also finished 136th in the mile in 4:57.35. The junior already broke the 1,000 meters record earlier this season. Addison Parrott improved her stock in the 3,000-meter run with a new personal-best mark of 9 minutes, 41.17 seconds to finish in 136th place.

Meanwhile, the remainder of Central’s track and field teams were crowned the champions of the Darren Young Classic at Grinnell College, in their first event of the season with team scoring. Central topped the nine-team field in both genders, with the women scoring 149 points to outpace Grinnell’s 117, while the men squeezed past the hosts 139 to 135. The men were dominant in the 60-meter hurdles with seven of the eight athletes in the finals wearing Central uniforms and totaling 38 points. Gunner Meyer finished first (8.12 seconds), Grant Miller took 2nd, and Reid Pakkebier was 3rd to lead the seven Dutch runners in the event. Kale Purcell swept the men’s horizontal jumps again, winning the triple jump in a meet record of 47 feet, 10 inches and taking the long jump at 21 feet, 11.5 inches. Junior Mary Gustason sprinted past the field in the women’s 60-meter dash in a new personal-best time of 7.89 seconds, while classmate Emily McMartin gave Central another title in the 200-meter dash (25.73 seconds).

The Central track and field teams return to Waverly next Saturday for the third time in four weeks, this time competing at the Liz Wuertz Invitational hosted by Wartburg College at 10:30 am.