BRIDGEWATER, Va.--The Hood College track club established seven school records at the Dr. Harry Jopson Invitational hosted by Bridgewater College Saturday, March 25. The 12-team, non-scoring meet was held under challenging weather conditions that included rain, snow and hail.

Despite the conditions, the Blazers had 11 top-10 finishes. Steve Delaney set a school and personal record in the 1,500-meter run, covering the distance in 4:30.20, a best by almost six seconds. He won his section and placed 10th overall.

Faraz Shoai again lowered his school record in the 5,000, this time by four seconds, in picking up seventh place.

Hood earned two top finishes in the women's 5,000 as freshman Danielle Sgro placed fifth and sophomore April Penn took eighth.

"One of the benefits of being a new program is that we have the opportunity to set and reset our school records," head coach Brent Ayer said. "That being said, we keep doing this because our young people are showing steady improvement. We took 14 student-athletes to the meet; 12 of them were either freshmen or sophomores.

"Steve demolished his season best and is poised to drop it even further," Ayer said. "Danielle did a nice job in her first track 5,000 and April took over a minute off her previous best. Faraz just keeps working hard and the times keep dropping."

Freshman sprinter Katie Thomas recorded Hood's highest individual finish--fourth in the 100-meter hurdles--and broke her still-fresh school record in the process. She later came back to finish 10th in the 200, again breaking her school record.

Top-10 finishes were also recorded by Ryan Jenkins (ninth in the 200), Mark MacKenzie (eighth in the discus) and freshman Terrence Sullivan (10th in the javelin), as well as the two Hood men's relay teams (fifth in the 4x100 and sixth in the 4x400).

Also setting school records were Tomilayo Komoaife (long jump) and Craig Callender (shot). The men ran the 4x400 relay for the first time. Helping set the new standard were Faizal Johnson, Steve Delaney, Tomilayo Komoaife and Ryan Jenkins.

Two athletes recorded times fast enough to be included in the rankings of the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC). The rankings are based on the average times that have earned points at the conference championships over the last three years. Hitting these standards were Jenkins (200 and 400 meters) and Sgro (5,000 meters).

Hood joins the CAC next year; however, CAC officials have begun including the Blazers in the rankings, and Hood has been invited to participate in this year's conference championship as a non-scoring guest.