The Mid-American Conference championships took a lot out of the track and field athletes last week, but this week a select few traveled to South Bend, Indiana to compete in the Alex Wilson Invitational.

Freshman middle distance runner Audrey Maheu broke a school record while competing at the invitational. Maheu finished 13th in the women’s mile with a time of 4 minutes, 49.03 seconds.

“A true freshman breaking a school record is a pretty amazing feat,” Kent State coach Bill Lawson said. “(This year) has been an outstanding freshman campaign by Maheu.”

Maheu also set a new school record Feb. 21 during the Kent State Tune Up in the women’s 1000-meter run.

Flashes’ Hall of Famer Debbie Duplay held the record since 1993. Maheu’s time was better by only 33 thousandths of a second.

Joining Maheu in breaking school records was the men’s distance medley relay team, consisting of sophomore distance runner John Minen, junior sprinter Curtis Eaton Jr., sophomore sprinter Destin Heasley and senior distance runner Tony Jordanek.

“The highlight of the meet was the men’s DMR team,” Lawson said.

The quartet crushed the old record that was set in 2005. Their time was 9:32.05, which beat the previous record by a little more than six seconds.

The DMR team placed 13th and qualified for the NCAA championships.

“The competition was hot, I’ve never seen anything like it over 25 years of coaching,” Lawson said referring to the race.

Junior middle distance runner Jessica Lhotsky competed in the women’s 800-meter run and finished fourth overall.

She had a provisional qualifying time of 2:06.95, which was also a personal-best.

Next week, the Flashes will send five athletes to compete in the NCAA championships for the rare opportunity to become a national champion.

Competing in the championships for the Flashes are senior thrower LeVania Henderson and the men’s DMR team.

Henderson has qualified to compete in the weight throw and the shot put.

The national championships will take place at College Station, Texas.

“Predicting results in national championships is impossible to do, but what we need to do is recover from this weekend,” Lawson said. “If we compete at the level that took us to the national championships, we will have a great weekend.”

Contact sports correspondent Cody Erbacher at [email protected].