ATLANTA – March 28-29, 2008 – The Clayton State Laker men’s track & field team had a formable start to their 2008 outdoor season on Friday and Saturday at the Emory Asics Classic, highlighted by four team records and a pair of victories in the hurdle events.

The Lakers finished fifth out of 17 teams with 79 points, behind Emory, which won with 122.50 points. Second place went to Taylor (100.50), followed by The College of New Jersey (95) and Case Western (93).

"This was a great start to our outdoor season," said Clayton State head coach Mike Mead. "We set a couple of team records, some guys ran personal bests and a couple flirted at NCAA Division II provisional qualifying marks. We did not run some of our best people in their strong events to prepare them for key meets later in the season."

Junior Au Nguyen got the Lakers going Friday night with a second place finish in the 10,000-meter run as he broke the men’s team’s oldest standing record finishing in a time of 34:00.02. Nguyen battled teammate Joey Chino throughout the race as the freshman finished third in 34:06.32.

Junior Ahmad Rolle, fresh off his Division II All-American efforts in the triple jump at the NCAA Division II indoor championships two weeks ago, bettered his team record in the 400-meter hurdles as he easily won the event in 53.70, and got to within .30 of the Division II provisional mark for the event.

Teammate Lawrence DeShields got even closer to a provisional time in the 110-meter hurdles. The junior cruised to a 14.76 to better his Clayton State record and get to within .09 of the Division II provisional time.

The final record of the day came from an unlikely source in Eric Simmons. The senior competed for the first time in the 100-meter dash, and finished third in the finals with a time of 10.80, bettering the Lakers’ hand-timed record of 10.64.

"We had some promising efforts today," said Mead. "Several guys were deliberately worked hard to prepare them for later in the season. Ahmad and Lawrence ran very well for their first races of the season. With a little more competition, they should hit a provisional time by the end of April.

"I was pleased with the efforts of our freshmen and our distance corps is much better than it has been in about four years."

Freshman performances of note included Chino’s third place in the 10,000-meter run, a third place finish in the 1500-meter run of 4:01.18 by Walid Berkhedle, a fifth place finish in the 100-meter dash of 11.15 by Tim Moran, a seventh place in the 110-meter hurdles by Ronreaco Lee and a 10th place finish in the 400-meter dash by Sherard Polite.

The Lakers also got a second place finish in the 4x100-meter relay of Rolle, Simmons, DeShields and Moran and a third in the 4x400-meter relay of Rolle, DeShields, Simmons and Berkhedle.

The Lakers next compete at the Gem of the Hills Invitation on April 5 in Jacksonville, Ala. as Jacksonville State hosts the meet which begins at 10 a.m. CDT.