Eastern had many good individual performances at the Big Blue Classic on Friday and Saturday, but came up short placing second to Indiana State.

The highlights of the meet for the Panthers were the great performances of two of the team’s leaders.

Junior Jarrod Macklin and senior Jason Bialka were able to lead Eastern individually with their efforts.

“The team continues to look towards those two for good performances,” Eastern men’s track head coach Tom Akers said. “In every sport there are people that you have to look at to be go-to guys, and those guys are the go-to guys for us right now.”

Bialka, who was the indoor runner of the year this past indoor season, won the 1500-meter race, and took third in the 800 meter race.

But Akers was able to take solace in Bialka not winning the 800-meter event because Panther freshman Kevin Atkins won the event out the slow heat.

While Macklin, who also turned out a good individual effort of his own, winning both the open 400-meter race and the 200-meter race.

What was even more impressive about winning the 200-meters was Macklin’s time in the event. The junior ran the 200-meters in a time of 20.90 seconds.

“One of our goals all season long was to get Jarrod under 21 seconds in the 200,” Akers said. “And even though it was somewhat wind aided, it was good for him to shave that much time off.

“In sprinting it is hard to get that big a chunk off his time and get him under that 21-second goal.”

The runners were not the only Panthers who were able to put in good efforts at the Big Blue Classic, especially the pole vaulters.

Roy Settegren and Nick Jackson both put up personal bests in the pole vaulting events with Settegren vaulting 14-feet 5-inches, and Jackson vaulting 14-feet 11-inches.

Akers sees the performance of the two vaulters, as a stepping stone for the rest of the season.

“Pole vaulting is a mental sport, with jumping at the pole and everything,” Akers said. “Those two guys have been really coming around in practice. It’ll be good for them to get a meet like this under the belt to build on for the rest of the season.”