It's just wouldn't be a good day without seeing your buddies! What lens is this? I think shutter priority is a good choice because it is possible with the ISO abilities of that camera. Stopping down a couple stops might help though with sharpness. Maybe try manual mode, 1/1000 sec, f/10 and let ISO take care of exposure. The downside of that is as ISO goes up, the image gets flatter. But you should be able to keep it to under 6400, which should be just fine for stuff like this.
