FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Last weekend, the highlight of the Lumberjack Team Challenge was the narrow, 4x400m relay victory by the NAU men to close out the meet. This time around at Friday Night Duals, it was the NAU women's 4x400m relay team that would not be outdone.

In what was the best team performance of the night, senior Bria Edwards, freshman Jasmine Malone, redshirt-sophomore Ashley Taylor and redshirt-freshman anchor Tylnn Carter recorded a 3:53.21 time for the Lumberjacks, securing an exciting first-place victory by four-hundredths of a second over Cal State Fullerton's group in the second-to-last event of the night.

"Overall, today definitely looked better than last week, just in terms of how each athlete approached the meet, their confidence level and their preparation," said Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Eric Heins. "All across the board, it was a much better meet."

As was the case during last weekend's meet, there were some individual performances that took center stage for the Lumberjacks Friday afternoon. Brooke Andersen continues to add to her impressive NAU resume, with the redshirt-sophomore logging a career-best in the women's weight throw with a mark of 18.75m, 61-06.25. That throw was well above the conference qualifying standards for that event by nearly two full meters and gave her a first-place finish.

Friday afternoon was also the first taste Lumberjack fans got of redshirt-junior Futsum Zienasellassie during the 2015-16 school year, although you would not be able to tell by the way he performed. The Indiana native raced in four separate track events and finished with first-place victories in two of them. After earning a win in the mile, Ziensellassie tallied another victory in the 800m event with conference-qualifying time at 1:54.22 (1:52:24, after being adjusted for altitude).

Redshirt-sophomore and defending indoor and outdoor Big Sky 200m champion James Fisher recorded another first-place win tonight, finishing with a 21.53 time in the 200m, while teammates Kossi Tchenawou and Isiah Kennedy placed one-two in the 60m dash.

"Our whole goal every year is to be on an upward trajectory with our best meet as a team at the [Big Sky] conference championships," said Heins. "That's exactly where we're at right now: we're building on each week and getting better. We have one more week and then we'll take a two week break before we compete again. I'm looking forward to good things going on next week at Mountain T's and a good, solid training block before the middle of February."

The Lumberjacks have the rest of this weekend off from competition before hosting next weekend's Mountain T's in the Walkup Skydome. The meet begins at 9:20 a.m. MST next Friday and continues into Saturday, starting at 8 a.m. Tickets can be purchased here, or at the box office on the east side of the building before the meet.

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Quick Notes:

Redshirt-senior thrower Jessica Weise secured a first-place win in the shot put tonight (14.17m, 46-06.00) and a second-place finish in the weight throw (17.55m, 57-07.00). While Weise already notched a conference-qualifying mark in the shot put last weekend, she also qualified for conference in the weight throw this afternoon.

Staying with the throws group, redshirt-junior Micael Ljungberg also recorded first and second place marks of his own Friday. Ljungberg totaled a 16.91m, 55-05.75 best mark in the weight throw and 15.11m, 49-07.00 in the shot put event. Neither were qualifying marks for conference.

After calculated for altitude, senior DeShon Norris nearly qualified for conference action in the 60m, coming two-hundredths of a second shy. Malone also competed well for the Lumberjacks in the women's 200m, coming in third place even though she raced in the fourth of five heats.