Flames track and field team dominates in Liberty Kickoff Meet

The opening weekend of the track season welcomed fresh new competition at Liberty University’s Indoor Track Complex. 

With several teams from around the state of Virginia gathering to take part in this Liberty Kickoff, excitement buzzed with each event, and at the end of the weekend, Flames  players shattered records en route to a solid opening performance. 

One of those shattered records occurred on Day 2 of the meet in the 60-meter hurdles, when sophomore India Cartwright raced to an 8.23 final time. This number not only broke the Liberty record set in 2007 in the Big South championship by Arlene Zelinskas, but it also became the new ASUN conference record, which eclipsed the mark set by Jacksonville University’s Shanique Walker at the 2014 ASUN championship.  

Day 2 brought another broken record for the Flames, when junior Warren Barrett set a two-day score in the shot put at 63.5 meters, beating out Kyle Mitchell’s 2020 ASUN Championship distance by five twelths of a meter to set the ASUN conference record. Barrett’s 19.29 throw in Day 2 withstood all comers by a wide margin, including his fellow Liberty teammates Kevin Nedrick and Desmond Coleman, who finished second and third in the Day 2 shot put with throws of 18.15 and 15.31 meters, respectively.  

The third and final record broken at the Liberty Kickoff happened to be a special one for freshman Elonzo Burroughs, shattering the Liberty freshman record for the 300-meter race and posting a time of 34.37 seconds. Burroughs defeated Virginia’s Will Trent by 1.42 seconds and Liberty teammate Daniel Leja by 2.32 seconds.  

The rest of the weekend witnessed a slew of victories by multiple different colleges.  Among the Flames who walked away with a gold medal was junior Meredith Engle, who claimed victory in the women’s shot put and overall pentathlon (12.47 meter throw, 3960 for entire weekend) and the 800 meter run (2:23.20). Freshman Paola Bueno also secured gold, outlasting her competitors to win the women’s weight throw (17.83 meters).

The final two Flames gold medal winners were sophomore Kacy Cox, who finished first at the women’s high jump (1.64 meters), and freshman Summer Bejanaro, who started her year strong with a victory in the women’s one mile run (5:19.12).

The Liberty men’s team saw its share of victories as well. Aside from the records set by Barrett and Burroughs, other Flames to finish in first place included junior Felix Lawrence in the 60-meter hurdles (8.09), sophomore Kennedy Sauder, who eked out his win in the high jump by milliseconds  over fellow sophomore Liberty teammate Gabriel Willis, as he finished his day with a top clearance of 6-8.25. Junior Quinten Clay leaped his way to victory in the long jump (7.42 meters) and triple jump (15.28 meters), and sophomore Anthony Bryan also accumulated victories in the heptathlon’s 60-meter dash (7.09) and 60-meter hurdles (8.29), along with the shot put (13.38 meters) and long jump (7.85m), which propelled Bryan to an overall heptathlon win, finishing with 5334 points.  

The upcoming schedule for the Flames will see sophomore Tristian Merchant  as he will be the sole Flame to compete in the men’s 5K on Saturday, Dec. 10 at 6:10 p.m. Hosted by Boston University, the Sharon Colyear-Danville Season Opener will stream the entire event on Saturday via FloTrack and can be watched there for free. 

Palermo is a sports reporter for the Liberty Champion. Follow him on Twitter