HICKORY, N.C. - The Lenoir-Rhyne Men's Track and Field Team brought home a second-place finish at the 2024 South Atlantic Conference Outdoor Championships on Thursday. This year's event took place at the home venue of the Irwin Track at the Moretz Sports Athletic Campus.

The Bears finished with 158.5 total points, trailing only Wingate, who had 250. The Bears had a huge lead on the third-place finisher, Tusculum, who ended with 89 points.

FAST FACTS FROM THE SAC OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS:

• The Bears' best event came in the decathlon, where they recorded 21 of their 158.5 total points. LR finished first and second in the competition with Philip Stomne recording 6365 points and Dion Enongene recording 5647 points.
• The most dominant event the Bears produced on the track was the 400-meter race, where LR earned 19 points. Bamidele Ajayi, Olawole Olanrewaju and Jacob Wadsworth notched second, third, and fourth place finishes, respectively.
• In the long jump competition, LR took home 19 points with the performances of Wadsworth, Tylei Woolard and Ezequiel Bustamante. Wadsworth, the senior from Dansville, N.Y., recorded a SAC Championship-record 7.66 meters. Meanwhile for Woolard, he registered a distance of 7.24 meters while Bustamante had a 7.11-meter result.
• Another first-place finish that the Bears received was Clarence McGill's time of 51.77 in the 400-meter hurdles. Marcus Crumpler added three more points for LR with a sixth-place time of 54.78. 
• In the 200-meter dash, the Bears registered 12 more points thanks to the second-place finish by Sincere Sanders-Moss and the fifth-place result by Ajayi. The duo ran times of 20.95 and 21.33, respectively.
• For the final event of the day, LR was able to finish with a first-place time of 3:08.32 in the 4x400-meter relay. The team was made up of McGill, Ajayi, Olanrewaju, and Wadsworth.
• In the pole vault event, Mike Karicher gained six more points for the Bears with a third-place clearance of 4.37 meters. Stomne, who had a sixth-place jump of 4.22 meters, gave LR three additional points.
• For the hammer throw event, Ellis Horton finished third in the competition with a toss of 49.5 meters. After Horton brought home six points for the Bears, Monte Scott secured an additional three points with his throw of 46.35 meters.
• On the track, Nick Tibolla took a third-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.83. The Bears were able to tally nine total points thanks to Tibolla's six and Liam Sutton's three, who finished sixth with a 15.34 result.
• In the javelin throw event, Josh Wise brought home eight points for the Bears with a second-place throw of 55.49 meters. 

The Lenoir-Rhyne Men's Track and Field Team will now turn its attention to the final last chance meets of the outdoor season. The first last chance meet will be a two-day event hosted by LR, which begins on Saturday, May 11. The second last chance meet will be a one-day event hosted by Lee University on Saturday, May 11.