Hoosiers excel at Sea Ray Relay meet

In a meet featuring athletes from 117 different teams, the men's track team finished strong and maintained its momentum. IU finished with 13 Top 10 performances in 12 events and one first-place finish at the Sea Ray Relays this weekend in Knoxville, Tenn. The Hoosiers finished in the top five in three events.\nBeginning the four-day meet stretch for the Hoosiers was senior Brian Bowman, who finished fourth in the Scott Hartman Decathlon with a career-high point total of 7,091. That number shattered his previous high of 6,508 set at the 1999 Outdoor Big Ten Championships. Bowman set career-bests in five events along the way, the100-meter dash, long jump, shot put, 400-meter run and 110-meter high hurdles.\nIn the distance events, senior Aaron Gillen finished sixth in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 14:26.21 minutes, the fastest time turned in for the Hoosiers this season. Sophomore Chris Powers took ninth with a time of 14:29.58, also a career best. \nThe men finished strong in the 10,000-meter race with sophomore Chad Andrews taking second, coming in three seconds behind the event winner. The men's distance squad also combined for a second place finish in the 4x1500-meter relay Saturday. The Hoosiers finished four seconds behind Georgetown. \nAlso in the distance category, sophomore Jeff Zeha placed eighth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:18.94, beating his previous season best of 9:36.35. Senior Tom Brooks, who is fifth all-time on IU's steeplechase records list, took 10th in the event with a time of 9:09.13, three seconds off of his career-best set last season at the Big Ten Championships. \nMiddle distance runner junior Ryan Huber finished 10th in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:49.75. \nIn the final day of competition, sophomore Mike Minton, who finished sixth in the discus and won the open shot put the day before, took seventh in the shot put with a toss of 17.06 meters. Minton defeated conference-rival Dan Taylor of Ohio State by a sizeable margin. Taylor took eighth with a toss of 15.99 meters.