Montreat, NC – Six Patriots landed in the top-eight of their respective events at Saturday's Montreat Invitational. Numerous personal benchmarks were set at the opening meet of the season, while Carson Johnson already submitted a ticket for the NAIA Championships.
 
Johnson began the season with a pair of A-standards in his first two attempts at the 5,000-meter racewalk. A week ago, the second-year Patriot placed third at the Rams College Invitational with a time of 22:37.43, setting a time to beat this season. Johnson came close to beating the mark on Saturday with a 22:39.77 finish.
 
In his fourth attempt at the racewalk, Nicolas Ceccioni has continually improved in the event through his career. At the Rams College Invitational a week ago, he noted a time of 33:29.89, over 30 seconds of improvement since the 2019 MSC Championships and almost seven minutes faster than his first attempt at the event. He improved further to 31:23.06 on Saturday at Montreat, placing fifth.
 
At the moment, both Johnson and Ceccioni would have a spot at the national championships being ranked in the top-16 of the event. Johnson is currently second with his time from the Rams College Invite while his teammate ranks ninth.
 
Cumberlands excelled off the track as well, Tristan Petrey finishing fourth in pole vault and throws tallying another two team points for the Patriots. Petrey cleared 4.40 meters in three attempts, setting a benchmark for himself for the rest of the season.  The rookie's personal best in the indoor season was 4.50 meters.
 
Malik Burns led the crew at shot put with an eighth-place finish, tossing 13.49 meters to get into the final flight and a best throw of 13.78 meters for the day. At hammer on Friday, Jhawan Horton noted a long toss of 44.24 meters.
 
Rounding out the scoring list, Ken Cobb placed 8th in his first attempt at the 100 meters as a Patriot. He was also the fifth NAIA finisher to cross the line.
 
Cumberlands men's track and field scored 20 team points through the top-eight showings. They placed 16th of 32 teams scoring at the invitational.
 
The Cumberlands 4x100-meter relay squad set themselves a personal time to beat in their 10th place finish. The foursome of Matthew Chavers, Leonardo Daley, Keith Williams and Cobb clocked 43.74 through the lap.
 
In addition to a top-20 showing in shot put, James Crawford also tossed 26.48 meters at discus for 15th in the 40-man field.
 
Chandler Powell narrowly missed a top-16 spot in his first attempt at triple jump this season. The rookie recorded a mark of 11.25 off the board for 17th.
 
Complete results for the day can be viewed here.
 
On Friday, Cumberlands will travel to Oak Ridge, TN for the Good Friday Challenge hosted by Tennessee Wesleyan. The following weekend they will return to Tennessee for Lee University's Flames Invite.
 
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