SIUC men’s track junior Jeremy Parks led a group of athletes finishing with personal-best times in an unscored meet at the Butler Invitational in Indianapolis Saturday.

Parks finished first among collegiate athletes and third overall against a field of 26 athletes in the 3,000-meter run with a personal best time of 8 minutes and 30.43 seconds.

Men’s coach Bill Cornell said his athletes are beginning to form into solid competitive condition.

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The troops are just now rounding into shape, Cornell said. They keep closing the gap each week.

Other athletes with personal bests were sophomore Noam Darsa, who finished 11th in the 800-meter (1:53.34) and moved up to fourth place in the Missouri Valley Conference rankings. Sophomore Matt McClelland finished eighth in the mile (4:16.16) while freshman Chris Owen finished 18th (4.24.28).

In the field events, freshman Loren King finished second in the high jump with a jump of 6 feet and 9 inches, and sophomore Brad Bowers placed third in the long jump (23 feet 3 1/2 inches). Junior Mike Sandusky finished fifth in the shot put (48 feet 11 inches).

Cornell said the long bus ride home and late evening meet led to some weariness among his athletes.

I was feeling pretty good about the team, Cornell said. It was a tiring trip. We drove up Saturday morning to compete Saturday night, and the meet didn’t get over until around midnight.

There was a lot of jumble up there. It was like a three-ring circus. This may be the last time we take that trip.

The Saluki women’s track and field team’s distance medley team placed first with a five-second victory over the University of Miami-Ohio, 12:04.40 to 12:09.40.

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Sophomore Leah Nolden ran the 400-meter leg, freshman Becky Cox ran the 800-meter leg, senior Raina Larsen in the 1,200-meter leg and senior Kelly French in the mile leg of the race for the Salukis.

Women’s coach Don DeNoon said the medley team did not run as well as he wanted.

Their time wasn’t nearly what we thought it would be, we wanted around (11:50), DeNoon said. All the legs really ran well though. Raina just dominated the field and Kelly picked up the lead about 600 [meters] into the mile.

The other top finisher for the women’s team was freshman Felicia Hill with a third-place finish in the high jump (1.72 meters) and a fourth-place finish in the triple jump (11.51 meters). Sophomore Finda Fallah finished fourth in the long jump (5.41 meters), and senior Amy Stearns finished fourth in the weight throw (14.57 meters) and sixth in the shot put (12.21 meters).

DeNoon said the competition at the meet was tougher than the team has seen recently.

The competition here was a lot tougher than what our conference competition would be, DeNoon said.

The men’s and women’s track and field team will be in action at the Indiana Mid-America Invitational in Bloomington, Ind., Friday.