Barnett shatters school record at Willie Williams Classic

Friday, March 18

Tucson, Ariz.

All Day

Grand Canyon

Willie Williams Classic

Barnett shatters school record at Willie Williams Classic

3/20/2016 7:39:00 PM | Track and Field

Results

By: Charles Hampton

Tarasue Barnett shattered a Grand Canyon school record on Saturday as the Lopes wrapped up their first competition of the outdoor season at the Willie Williams Classic in Tucson, Ariz.

The Lopes had a number of other highlight performances after two days of stiff competition, including facing the NCAA men's and women's Indoor Championships winning Oregon Ducks. For the meet, GCU had 11 marks that currently rank as best in their event in the Western Athletic Conference.

"Overall I'm very please with the results from our first outdoor meet," head coach Tom Flood said. "We held some athletes out of their normal events and didn't run some at all for precautionary reasons, it's a long outdoor season and wanted to play it safe."

Barnett, a junior from Kingston Jamaica, placed second overall in the women's discus with a throw of 56.92m, which broke Vanessa Levy's school record of 50.13m by over 20 feet. The throw is the No. 1 mark in the WAC, currently 34 feet 8 inches further than the second best mark in the conference, and the No. 3 ranked thrown in the entire country.

Grand Canyon also had two event winners on the day with Jennifer Rolph winning the women's pole vault and Jude Olear winning the men's triple jump. Rolph cleared 3.93m (12-10.75) in vault, while Olear leaped 14.27m to win by over a foot.

Aaron Thurber had a pair of runner-up finishes in the 100 and 200 meters, trailing only Oregon national champion and Phoenix native Devon Allen in each event. Thurber's times of 10.44 and 21.16 were both collegiate bests and currently lead the WAC.

The Lopes had two more second-place finishes in Tucson with Andrea Olstead and Scott Marshall finishing as the runner-up in the women's triple jump and men's pole vault respectively.

Flood said he's looking forward to the Lopes getting back after it in practice this week and look to continue putting up great times and marks at the Aztec Invitational on March 25-26 in San Diego, Calif.