Southern Illinois University
State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championships
Track & Field in lead at MVC Championships
02/27/2010 | 12:00:00 | Track and Field
Feb. 27, 2010
By Jason Clay
www.SIUSalukis.com
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa - The Southern Illinois men's and women's track and field teams both hold a slim lead after the first day of the 2010 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships that are being held at the UNI-Dome.
The Saluki women won two events and scored 40 points on Saturday to lead Wichita State by a point. SIU's men's squad owns a three-point lead over Northern Iowa. J.C. Lambert was the lone event winner on the men's side Saturday, as the Dawgs picked up 47 points.
"We're in the lead, but I thought there were a couple of places where we lost points we should have had," head coach Connie Price-Smith said. "Tomorrow we need to come out and work really hard as a team. We have a lot of people that are in the finals, so we're in a good position to score some points and we just need to come out and execute."
For the sixth-straight season, SIU won the women's weight throw. Sophomore Jeneva McCall took first with her throw of 21.23m. Sasha Leeth finished third in the event, Rickael Roach was fifth and Gwen Berry and Olga Ciura came in sixth and seventh place, respectively.
Cody Doerflein was the first Saluki on the men's side to collect points, as he finished second in the pole vault. His height of 5.21 meters tied with two other competitors, but UNI's Sam Kranz won the event by a judges decision.
Lambert then became the first MVC Champion of the day for the men, as he won the men's weight throw with a mark of 20.26m. Matt Eader also scored points in the event, as he finished in fifth place.
Malaikah Love was the third Saluki to win an event Friday. She improved on her own personal record with a mark of 6.23m and barely nudged Wichita State's La'Taish Brown who jumped 6.22m to win the event. SIU has now won the women's long jump in each of the last five seasons.
SIU's men's distance medley team was edged out in a sprint to the finish line when the Panther's Andrew Nelson edged out Zach Dahleen by 0.6 tenths of a second.
Continuing on with the distance events, Jeff Schirmer and Kyle Kirchner both scored points in the 3,000m run. Schirmer finished second with a time of 8:37.33 and Kirchner was fifth at 8:43.22.
Southern Illinois has put itself in good position to win the championships on Saturday with a number of athletes advancing to the finals in the track events. Meredith Hayes qualified for the women's 60m finals, as did Brandon Deloney and Anthony Seay on the men's side. Deloney tied his personal record time of 6.89 in the prelims.
In the 400m, the Saluki women saw three of their sprinters qualify for the final eight positions. Tess Shubert, baron_alisa00.html" >Alisa Baron and Kandise Thompson all reached the finals.
Thompson also qualified for Sunday's 200m finals and Deloney ran the top preliminary time in the men's 200m to reach the finals.
Just like the women, SIU had the top 400m qualifier on the men's side with Sammy Biggs running 48.59 in the prelims.
Terri Counts was the No. 1 qualifier in the 60H. She set a new personal record of 8.55 in the prelims and will be joined by Hayes, Miracle Thompson and Laquitsha Bejoile in the finals.
The final qualifiers came in the 800m, where Nefeteri Williams and Stephen Arvain both reached the finals.
The championships continue on Sunday, beginning at 10:30 a.m. with the end of the men's heptathlon events.
Players Mentioned
