Competing Saturday morning in the Eddie Smith Field house on the campus of the University of North Carolina, Beyle set a personal best with his winning put of 61 feet, 6.75 inches — topping the old meet record of 58-8.25 hit in 2003 by Marshville Forest Hills’ Marque Hall.

“He is always a work in progress. The thing I admire is that he’s always working to do tings the right way,” said Beyle’s father and coach, Jon Sr. “This was just a great culmination of a lot of things he’s worked on.”

Beyle’s distance Saturday was 6 feet better than runnerup MyQuon Stout of China Grove Carson and, significantly, almost 3 feet better than the mark of 58.9 feet Beyle hit one week before in the N.C. Elite Holiday Invitational in Winston-Salem.

That Elite mark was already the nation’s top performance this season by a high school shot-putter.

A pair of Durham athletes were not too far behind the leaders Saturday. Jalen Peterkin of Southern High put the shot 54-3 feet for third place and Myle Braswell of Northern hit 52-11 for fourth place.

Other are athletes with good performances Saturday included William Buckley of East Chapel Hill, who finished fifth in a top-flight 55-meters final with a time of 6.6 seconds. Southern Durham’s William Cameron finished sixth in 6.63.

Buckley was coming off an outstanding day at the N.C. Elite Holiday Invitational, where he won the morning’s 55 meters and then placed third in a special 60-meters race in the afternoon.

Libby Florence of Cedar Ridge placed third at UNC in the girls’ high jump with a height of 5 feet, 2 inches, just twp inches lower than the winning 5-4 of Ravenscoft’s Margaret Edwards.

East Chapel Hill’s Greg Burchfield cleared q11 feet, six inches to tie for sixth in a pole vault competition that included Carolina-12 record-holder Ethan Smith of Cedar Ridge.

In the day’s premier event for girls, Raleigh Ravenscroft senior Wesley Frazier of shattered the meet record in the 3,200, beating out sophomore sister Ryen Frazier and Durham Academy sophomore Eliza Dekker.

Frazier, who recently announced she will run for Duke University next fall, clocked in at 10:26.3, easily topping the 2002 time of 11:01.48 by Carly Matthews of Mt. Tabor. Ryen Frazier also bettered that old mark with her 10:34.05 for second place, while Dekker just missed with her 11:10.04 in third place Saturday. Nina Pande of East Chapel Hill was fifth in 11:36.09.

Hana Ratcliffe of Durham School of the Arts had a good day with her pair of fourth places — 3:13.07 in the 1,000 meters and 5:28.99 in the 1,600 meters.