Barton track and field earns three conference honors in first week of indoor season #GoBarton

Three members of the Barton Community College track and field team were named KJCCC Kansas MTXE Indoor Track Athletes of the Week in the opening week of the 2018 season. The Lady Cougars' Amanda Carty and Keosha Sanders swept the women's awards while Kevin Nedrick earned the field honor on the men's side.

The Cougar squad opened the season this past weekend at the University of Nebraska's Graduate Classic in Lincoln, Nebraska. Formerly known as the Holiday Inn Invitational, the Lady Cougars captured two titles and twelve top ten placings while the men brought home three titles and twenty top ten finishes amongst the nineteen teams participating from most levels of collegiate athletics.

Carty held the lead through four rounds of the triple jump, taking the lead with a personal best 12.32m (40-05.00) in the second round before passing on her final two attempts in settling for the runner-up placing six inches behind the University of Nebraska's Angela Mercurio's 12.47m (40-11.00). The sophomore from Jamaica's leap sits atop the early national chart by over nineteen inches from the nearest competitor.

Sanders just missed a personal best in her first meet as a sophomore, taking home the 60m dash title in 7.51 seconds, .09 seconds ahead of UNL's Lakayla Harris. The Florida native who has signed with New Mexico State University, currently is .01 out of the top spot in the NJCAA.

Making noise in his Cougar debut, Nedrick nearly broke the school's shot put record on his fourth collegiate heave of the meet with a toss of 18.02m (59-01.50). Eclipsing the 17.50 mark on four of his six throws, the Jamaica native's winning throw fell just .02m of Garland Porter's mark set at the 2003 indoor national meet. Sanjae Lawrence, who flirted with the record last season with a second best 17.65m, also had a great start to the year with a new personal best 17.70m (58-01.00) to take the runner-up placing.

Both squads are currently in Albuquerque, New Mexico, participating in the two day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Invitational hosted by the University of New Mexico.