AZUSA, Calif. – Whenever he steps onto the track, Futsum Zienasellassie is a must-watch athlete and Thursday night was no different for the Northern Arizona University senior, who shattered a 22-year old Cougar Athletic Stadium record with a personal-record 13:37.89 mark in the men's 5000m race.

With his first-place performance tonight, Zienasellassie now claims sole position of the third-best time in the men's 5000m event in both school and Big Sky Conference history. Needless to say, his time ranks No. 1 in the conference this outdoor season and going into competition today, it would be the top time in the nation as well.

Not to be outdone, however, was Zienasellassie's counterpart on the women's side Melanie Townsend, who also did her part in re-writing the record books Thursday night. In the women's 10,000m event at Mt. SAC Relays, the NAU junior set a new PR by a minute and 43 seconds with her 34:00.27 time. Townsend's mark qualified her for conference in May in the 10K, an event she now ranks second all-time in school history in and eighth all-time in outdoor conference history.

On the theme of setting new PR's, redshirt-senior thrower Jessica Weise did the same Thursday with her first-place toss in the women's hammer throw event. Weise's mark of 184-07 (56.27m) bested her previous PR by nearly an entire meter, surely helping her climb the conference rankings in that event where she already sat in sixth coming into today.

Other Notes From Thursday

Senior throw Adam Keenan continues to mount one of the more impressive seasons in the men's hammer throw event in school and conference history, recording another 220-plus foot mark at today's Mt. SAC Relays (224-00, 68.29m) … Keenan now holds the top three marks in school history and three of the top four in conference history (No. 1, 3, 4) … NAU's Matt Baxter placed 11th-overall in the men's 10K at  Mt. SAC, setting a PR with 29:19.45 time that also automatically qualified him for conference in that event … Redshirt-senior Caleb Hoover also ran in the men's 5000m race tonight, hitting a sub-14 minute mark at 13:58.94 for fifth-place

Tomorrow's Action

The Bryan Clay Invite from Azusa gets underway tomorrow with the track events at 10 a.m. and the field events at 9 a.m. At Mt. SAC, the track events start at 10:30 a.m. with the 1500m race while field events begin at 11 a.m. As always, all times are MT.