<hool record in the 4x200-meter relay and the Panamanian national record in the 3000-meter run were both broken by members of the Carleton College men’s indoor track and field team during the Meet of the Hearts on Saturday. All told, the Knights won 15 of the 17 events.
The meet started with the 4×200 relay. Maurice Hicks (Sr./Upper Marlboro, Md./Maret), Zach Kulstad (Fy./Savage Minn./Prior Lake), Bryan Richter (So./Des Moines, Iowa/Lincoln), and Ben Schwartz (So./Mankato, Minn./Mankato East) combined on a time of 1:30.60 to eclipse the program standard established less than a year ago.
Later in the day, Donson Cook-Gallardo (Sr./Moscow, Idaho/Moscow)—who was born in Panama and grew up in Idaho and therefore has dual citizenship—took aim at the Panamanian national record for the indoors 3000-meter run. The previous mark was 8:37.13, and after 13 of the race’s 15 laps, he was running at an 8:37.70 pace.
The crowd roared over the final two laps, and the Carleton senior, racing in the final home indoor meet of his career, increased his speed over the race’s final two laps, kicking it in to finish at 8:32.44… good for a new Panamanian national record!
A Panamanian flag was draped over Donson Cook-Gallardo’s shoulders and with the Panamanian national anthem playing over the Rec Center’s sound system, he jogged a celebratory lap.
Carleton swept the other nine track events as well.
Lucas Mueller (Fy./St. Paul, Minn./Nova Classical Academy) led a 1-2-3-4 finish for Carleton in the mile run, crossing the finish line at 4:16.90, which ranks second behind Donson Cook-Gallardo on the MIAC performance list and No. 15 nationally.
Justin Washington (So./Chicago, Ill./Northside College Prep) won the 55-meter hurdles in 8.39 seconds. Emanual Williams (So./Lovelady, Texas/Lovelady) next prevailed in the 55-meter dash in 6.73, while Schwartz finished second in that race but later posted an indoor personal best in winning the 200-meter dash in 22.98.
Kulstad continued to impress in his home debut, edging Hicks for the top spot in the 400-meter dash 51.28 to 51.30 as both Knights set new personal records. Kulstad also won the high Jump with a personal best of 1.89 meters.
Sandwiched around Joey Cook-Gallardo’s (So./Moscow, Idaho/Moscow) victory in the 800-meter run—accomplished in a personal best time of 1:56.11 to rank No. 22 nationally and No. 2 in the MIAC behind his older brother—were the first collegiate victories by Nick Brusilow (Fy./Grosse Pointe, Mich./Liggett) and Conrad Phelan (So./St. Louis Park, Minn./St. Louis Park) in the 600-meter dash (1:26.39) and 1000-meter run (2:48.68), respectively.
Peter Keel (So./Roseville, Minn./Roseville) won both the long jump (6.32 meters) and triple jump (13.11 meters)
Decathletes Jack Buckner (Sr./Seattle, Wash./Northwest) and Liam Sullivan (So./Chicago, Ill./St. Ignatius) were busy. The former set a new personal record (11.46 meters) in winning the shot put. That came after he had already competed in the long jump, pole vault, and 55-meter dash. Not to be outdone, Sullivan also PR’d in the shot put (10.92 meters), 55-meter hurdles (8.71), and pole vault (3.38 meters) in addition to competing in the high jump and long jump.