ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Bethel University men's track and field team competed in their second meet of the season Friday night at the University of St. Thomas.  While several athletes are nursing early-season injuries, the Royals put together another strong performance following their opening effort at the Bethel Open.

"It was a great way to continue to build on our first home meet a couple weeks back and I thought it was a very solid performance," said head coach Andrew Rock.

The throws group had a particularly good showing on Friday, with Bryce DeBoer breaking the school record in the weight throw.  DeBoer won the event with a distance of 16.59 meters, improving on his performance from the Bethel Open.  Along with teammates Josh Olson and Ben Irons, DeBoer led the charge in the shot put as well, with Bethel capturing three of the top ten spots in the event.

In addition, a few other Royals had strong outings in the individual running events as well as the relays.  Freshman Colton Syler finished second in the 60-meter hurdles and improved dramatically from the preliminaries to finals.  Matt Berens and Connor Haugen also put forth solid efforts in the 1-mile run, both finishing inside the Top 15 for the event.  Coming off an early back injury, Patrick Klamm made his debut in the 200-meter dash, finishing ninth overall with a time of 23.47 seconds.

The Royal men also put forth a hard-fought performance in the highly anticipated 4x400 meter relay, finishing second only to St. Olaf.  The Oles barely edged out the Royals on the final straightaway, notching a time less than half a second faster than the Bethel squad.

Bethel will now look forward to their next meet at St. Olaf this Friday, where they will look to continue their early season progress.