ALLENDALE, Mich.- The Golden Eagles had yet another big day at the GVSU Big Meet Saturday. Many athletes achieved new personal bests, but no performance shocked the CUI track and field community as much as the women's distance medley relay.
 
The squad of Porshe Eismann, Bethany Schmidt, Maria Sartin, and Jori Paradis shocked everyone who was watching when they demolished the previous distance medley relay school record by 24 seconds. The athletes out in Michigan jumped for joy and the athletes and fans at home blew up the social media platforms in support of this performance. Not only did they hit the national provisional with this result, but they made it into the DII nation's top 3 so far this season. Paradis and Sartin already owned part of the record from 2023, but with the addition of grad transfer Schmidt and Jr. Eismann as well as the increase in speed from the returners this squad reached brand new heights. None of these ladies are strangers to the record book as Sartin and Schmidt were on the record-breaking 4x400m squad the previous weekend, while Eismann and Paradis broke school records just one day prior in the 800m and 3,000m respectively.
 
Splits (in order):
1200: Eismann, 3:32
400: Schmidt, 56.7
800: Sartin, 2:11 (3 seconds faster than her split last season)
1600: Paradis, 4:54 (more than 5 seconds faster than last year's split)
 
Additional outstanding performances on the women's side include 4 more athletes with big personal records. Sr. Logan Nelson sprinted to a .09 second PR in the 60m dash (7.80) then followed it up with an almost .20 second PR in the 200m (25.55) dash a few hours later. So. Ruby Bishop also hit a new PR in the 60m dash (8.05) by a tenth of a second. Next, as if one PR wasn't enough, Jori Paradis broke 5 minutes in the open mile for the first time with a 4:57. Finally, on the field side, Fr. Jasmyn Rios threw the shot for a 1.26m PR. Coming off a PR the day before of 11.75m, Rios decided to skip 12 meters completely and move her PR straight into the 13's with a 13.01m performance.
 
On the mens side, So. Noah Plaza and Fr. Lucas Grunden finally got their chance to race in the same heat after hitting near-identical times the day before in two separate heats of the mile. Plaza was the fastest Golden Eagle in the 3,000m hitting an 18 second PR in the event to cross the line in 8:27.61 for his season-opener in the event. Grunden came in a few seconds behind him at 8:32.17 for a two second PR from his career opener a week before. Later in the day, Fernando Aguirre raced to a 2 second PR of his own in the mile.
 
In the field, Hunter Hornaday continues to improve as he put the shot 14.23m for an 11cm indoor PR. He now sits only 2cm under his lifetime PR in the event. Gabe Jones doubled up with the long jump and triple jump for the second day in a row, and the dedication paid off as Jones hit a near 30cm PR in the long jump.

Concordia track and field will host The Golden Eagle Invitational on February 15-17 before returning to the indoor track with a trip to University of Washington for the Last Chance Qualifier on February 23-24. 

For the GVSU Friday and Saturday results CLICK HERE
For the entire track and field schedule CLICK HERE