Samford’s Indoor Track and Field team took home the SoCon Championship last weekend at VMI.
The championships extend Samford’s dominant run on the indoor circuit, with the women winning their eighth straight SoCon title and the men winning their fourth straight.
Samford took home 11 individual titles throughout the meet, including some new SoCon Championships records. Ty Kimberlin set a record for heptathlon points with 5,442 points en route to winning his fourth straight conference championship.
Kimberlin took home gold in the long jump as well with a 7.44m jump, but it’s the culmination of four years of work in the heptathlon that’s truly special to him.
“Four years in a row feels good, but what’s really awesome is spending four years with different athletes in the multi-group, so it’s really been a long time coming,” Kimberlin said. “They push me a ton. It’s really exciting just to kind of bring it all together, finish with a win to finish out my career.”
Titus Moore also set a conference championship record with his 7.79 second performance in the 60m hurdles.
On the women’s side, Hannah Daffin took home titles in both the shot put and weight throw. Brittany Bishop also became the first woman to win four SoCon titles in the pole vault.
The women’s team’s run of eight straight conference titles is the second longest active streak at Samford behind the soccer team’s nine straight SoCon titles.
Samford has also won seven SoCon titles across all sports this academic year.
Samford now moves on to the outdoor track and field season. The Bulldogs have won the last three women’s outdoor SoCon titles and back-to-back men’s titles.
Kimberlin believes that Samford will do even better in the outdoor season than they did during indoor season, even though they’ve already won SoCon championships this year.
“We’re actually a lot stronger [in] outdoor,” Kimberlin said. We have some really good throwers that are coming in [javelin], we’ve got just the same crew coming back in our sprints and our jump groups, so we’re really excited.”
Samford opens their outdoor slate at Montevallo on March 17-18 at the Falcon Classic. The Bulldogs will be at home on April 14 for their only on-campus meet of the season at Cameron Bean Track.
