Sophomores Wallace Branche and Quenton Richards both picked up wins for Denison on Saturday afternoon at the Carnegie Mellon Mini Invitational at Gesling Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Branche recorded the Big Red's first victory of the day after winning the triple jump with a meet-record mark of 46'4". Trailing Branche in second place was freshman Lester Harris who posted a personal-best performance with a leap of 42'6.25". Harris' final mark also landed him in 10th place on the program's top performers list for the outdoor season.
Richards finished the afternoon with one win and one runner-up performance. The sophomore sprinter was victorious in the 100-meter dash after crossing the finish line in 11.27. He followed that performance with a second-place finish in the 200. Richards earned the second spot with a time of 23.12. Senior Ivan Hall placed seventh in the 200 dash with a time of 24.21. Hall was also ninth in the 400-meter event after clocking in at 54.73
Denison's third runner-up performance of the day came from another sophomore, Mitch Keller. Keller placed second in the 3000-meter steeplechase after finishing the race in 10:02.18. Finishing fifth in the event was fellow sophomore Andrew Groff who recorded a time of 10:16.26.
Jon Brachna and Riley Roselius also claimed fifth in their respective events at Carnegie Mellon. Brachna posted a time of 1:59.31 in the 800-meter run, while Roselius cleared 10'4" in the pole vault. Brachna was also part of the fifth-place 4x400 relay team along with Zach Cove, Ryan and Mitch Keller. The DU foursome completed the race in 3:35.68.
John Bute took sixth in the shot put and was seventh in the discus. The senior threw the shot 40'7", while his discus toss went 120'8". Freshman Jake Dennie placed ninth in the 5000 with a time of 15:37.08, while sophomore Bryan Fowler took 10th in the javelin with a mark of 135'3". The mark by Fowler moved him into 10th on the school's top performers list.
The Big Red returns to action next Saturday at the Marv Frye Invitational hosted by Ohio Wesleyan University. Field events are scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., while running events will start at 3 p.m.
