McBirney, Jackson Lead Men's Track & Field at MIT Gordon Kelly Invitational

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Graduate student Kevin McBirney (East Bridgewater, Mass.) and freshman Jaiden Jackson (Newton, Mass.) each won events to lead the Bridgewater State University men's indoor track & field team on Saturday at the Gordon Kelly Invitational hosted by MIT at the Johnson Athletic Center.

McBirney paced the field in the 1,000-meter run with a winning time of 2:30.29. He was less than a second shy of his own school record of 2:29.42 set last year at the Tufts Branwen Smith-King Invitational.

Junior Aydan Fournier (Assonet, Mass.) placed second in the 1,000 with a career-best time of 2:35.07.

Jackson, who was making his BSU debut, captured top honors in the long jump with a leap of 22 feet, 10.25 inches (6.98m). He is currently ranked 31st in all of Division III in the event.

Freshman Clayton Pastor Norales (New Bedford, Mass.) also placed in the top ten for the Bears in the long jump as he was third at 22 feet, 2.25 inches (6.76m).

Graduate student Landon Crowley (West Bridgewater, Mass.) placed fifth in the 60-meter dash with a finals time of 7.06 seconds. Crowley also posted a season-best time of 6.99 seconds in the preliminaries as he was 11/100 of a second off the Bears' school mark of 6.88 seconds set by Chinedu Chukwu in 2015.

Senior Dasean Peters-Wolfe (Mansfield, Mass.) placed fourth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 23.07 seconds, while freshman Sean Venator (Manchester, N.H.) was tenth in the 400-meter dash as he crosse the line in 52.29 seconds.

Junior Brian Vale (Assonet, Mass.) finished ninth in the 800-meter run with a career indoor-best time of 2:02.57.

Freshman John Duffy (Franklin, Mass.) and senior Nicholas Grace (Acushnet, Mass.) placed seventh and eighth, respectively, in the triple jump. Duffy posted a leap of 39 feet, 11.25 inches (12.17m) while Grace recorded a career indoor-best mark of 39 feet, 10.5 inches (12.15m).

Rounding out the Bears' top ten performers were a pair of 4x400-meter relay squads. The foursome of McBirney, Grace, sophomore Drew Alves (Taunton, Mass.) and Fournier placed fourth in the 4x400 with a time of 3:31.34, while the quarter of junior Matthew Mooney (Douglas, Mass.), Crowley, junior Zachary Feist (Stoughton, Mass.) and sophomore Jaime Corral (Gardner, Mass.) were fifth in 3:35.46.

The Bears are back in action next Friday when they head to the Reggie Lewis Center for The Reggie Open.