AZUSA, CALIFORNIA — Central College women's track and field junior distance runner Peyton Steffen (junior, Marion) took down a pair of school records this week during an appearance at the Bryan Clay Invitational hosted by Azusa Pacific University.

Four distance athletes ventured with assistant coach Joe Dunham to Southern California in search of fast times against deep and talented fields.

"We had a great time in California," associate head coach Joe Dunham said. "We had two new school records, seven personal bests and six performances that were top 20 in the NCAA coming into the weekend."

Steffen started by breaking the women's 800 meters record, finishing 24th in 2 minutes 11.67 seconds. She also reestablished her own mark in the 1,500 meters with a time of 4:27.48, finishing 16th in the Open A division.

Addison Parrott (senior, Danville) was 54th in the Open B 1,500 meters race in 4:37.54 and she was 73rd in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 10:55.96. Her 1,500 time is No. 5 on Central's all-time list.

In the men's 3,000-meter steeplechase, Jack Brown (sophomore, Norwalk) was 38th in 8:57.93 and Derek Webster (senior, Norwalk) was 77th in 9:16.80. Brown ran 3:50.12 in the Open A of the men's 1500 meters, taking 73rd place and moving up to No .4 in school history. Webster was 37th in the Open C in 3:59.24

"I was proud of how they all competed hard and stayed focused on the races," Dunham said. They all ran smart and set themselves up for success. Sometimes that's hard to do in big races with lots of good competition. It's easy to panic and try to run outside of what your body can do. But they all ran within themselves and got great results."

Central will be competing next week at the Drake Relays in Des Moines and the Kip Janvrin Open in Indianola.