Courtney Lawrence and Daniel Cope of Cloud County Community College and Tyrese Reid of Barton County College got their first taste of US collegiate success over the weekend after winning their respective events at the National Junior College Athletics Association (NJCAA) Region VI indoor championships at Pittsburg State University's Robert W Plaster Center in Concordia, Kansas.

Lawrence broke the meet record in the men's shot put on Sunday with 18.49m, a day after former Petersfield High thrower, Cope, set a new personal best and school record to win the weight throw with 19.35m while Reid, the former Spot Valley High runner, romped to an easy victory in the men's 800m, running one minute 52.03 seconds.

Meanwhile, former Mt Alvernia High student Soyinne Greynion contributed to a record points tally for Indiana Tech after she placed second in the 60m and fourth in the 200m at the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletics Conference (WHAC) Indoor Track and Field Championships in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) at Alksnis Athletics and Recreation Building in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Greynion, a freshman, ran 7.66 seconds for the silver medal in the 60m and 25.85 seconds in the 200m as her teammate Sha'londa Terry took the sprint double.

Lawrence, who has been rewriting the NJCAA shot put record book all season, set the meet record of 18.48m, better than the 18.18m set in 2003, and improved on his second place from last year.

Cope, who was third in the event last year, improved on his own personal best 19.04m set less than two weeks ago, dominated the contest and beat second-place Fabio Hessling of Barton County (18.16m) by a full metre, with Fred Moudani also of Barton taking third with 16.26m.

Former Rusea's High runner Ackeen Colley won back-to-back 800m races for Western Illinois University after he ran one minute 52.40 seconds at Friday night's Eastern Illinois University's Friday Night Special in Charleston, Illinois.

The former Rusea's High and Jamaica junior representative, who broke the Western Illinois University school record a week ago, notched the sixth best time with his compatriot Richard Brown third with 1:54.94 seconds.