Shot putter Phil Caraher and distance runner Aidan O'Reilly performed their personal bests Saturday at the Millrose Games in New York City.

Caraher tossed 60'2" and took third place in the event, beating his previous best of 59'7" and qualifying provisionally for NCAAs for the second consecutive meet. He missed the straight qualifying standard by only four inches.

"I think if I keep working hard it'll come," Caraher said. "I want to keep lifting hard now."

Caraher said he will back off the weights later in the season, which will probably result in a longer throw. He isn't backing off yet because he isn't strong enough right now to throw well in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. Caraher said his goal isn't necessarily just to qualify for the national championships.

"I can't really see it as a big thing," he said. "Throwing my best throw is the biggest thing to me."

C.J. Hunter tossed 62'6½" for second place.

O'Reilly placed fourth in the IC4A mile, running his best time of 4:06.93. He qualified for the IC4A Championships during the Nittany Lion Invitational with a time of 4:09.

The Lions' 3,200-meter relay team placed second in 3:26.26 behind first place Albany University. Greg Rogers (51.9), Kevin Crepanuk (51.1), Greg Large (51.5) and Dave Marsden (52.2) made up the Lions' team.

"It was real close, we were in first for a while, then they caught us in the last lap," Marsden said.

The indoor track at Madison Square Garden is made up of boards and has banked turns.

"Guys get knocked down, not on purpose, but because they aren't used to being on boards," Coach Harry Groves said.

"It (the track) wasn't hard to run on at all. I thought it was pretty cool," Marsden said.

Marsden said good strategy is needed to maintain speed in the corners. He said a runner has to go into the banked turns high and come out low. Going into a turn low will decrease speed and a runner will lose time.

"I liked it, it was a little different," he said.

On Saturday the Lions hosted the Penn State Pentathlon at the Indoor Sports Complex. Groves said many athletes from other teams could not attend because of injuries or other reasons. Penn State's Barry Walsh and Ricardo Hall placed first and second and Walsh finished with 3,986 points and Hall finished with 3,718.

"I didn't really care who was going to be there, I just wanted to qualify for ICs," Walsh said.

A pentathlete needs 3,600 points to qualify for IC4As. Lions also finished in the third and fourth places: Brad Keyes in third place, missing the qualifying standard by 190 points, and Mason Ternay fourth.

Walsh finished first individually in the shot put (50'½") and the high jump (6'8"). Hall won the long jump (22'9½") and the 55-meter high hurdles (7.7). Keyes won the 1,000-meter run in 2:49.4.

In the pentathlon, the athlete's place in any event does not determine the number of points he obtains. The athletes' performance determines their number of points. Walsh said he likes the pentathlon because an athlete competes against himself.