SFA Track and Field Notches Strong Showing at Opening Day of Southland Indoor Championships

Wednesday, February 21

Birmingham, AL

ALL DAY

Stephen F. Austin

SLC Indoor Championships

SFA Track and Field Notches Strong Showing at Opening Day of Southland Indoor Championships

2/21/2018 10:37:00 PM | Track & Field

SFA men in second place, women tied for fifth after opening day of competition

By: Kevin Meyer | Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations

Meet Results | Day Two Heat Sheets

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – In its opening day of competition at the 2018 Southland Conference Indoor Championships, the Stephen F. Austin track and field team was buoyed by strong qualifying performances on the track as well as top finishes in the field events. The championships will conclude with a second day of competition at the Birmingham Crossplex in Birmingham, Alabama tomorrow.

The SFA men are in second place among the conference leaderboard with 40 points after the opening day, trailing Sam Houston State by just eight points. Lamar (28), Southeastern Louisiana (19) and McNeese (19) round out the top five on the men's side. SFA faces a more challenging landscape on the women's side, where they sit tied for fifth with Texas A&M-Corpus Christi with 17 points. Sam Houston State (44), Abilene Christian (41), McNeese (26) and Lamar (19) round out the top four on the women's side.

Antonio Ruiz secured SFA's first event win of the championship in the pole vault, where he was magnificent on the way to an indoor personal best of 5.50m (18'-0.5"), a mark that was more than a foot higher than the next closest finisher. Isaiah Pittman secured a second place finish in the long jump with a distance of 7.32m (24'-0.25"), a new personal best for him.

The 'Jacks closed out the meet in style with a pair of second-place finishes in the distance medley relay. In both races, SFA made up substantial ground on the anchor leg of the relay to secure the runner-up finish. In the women's medley relay, the medley team of LaSean Davis, Shania Ford, Kadrienne Sanders and Kelsey Ramirez ran to a second place finish, aided by a superb leg from Ramirez, as she passed two opponents on the final leg. Similarly, the men's relay team of Charles Fentress, Drake Murphy, Larry Deramus and Erick Rotich found itself trailing halfway through the race, only to have Fentress and Rotich run superb splits to vault them into a second place finish at 10:11.32.

The 'Jacks saw a large number of athletes qualify for the finals of the running events tomorrow, from the sprints to the distance group. Imani Nave qualified for the finals in the 200m with a time of 24.65, while Madison Compass and LaSean Davis finished fourth and fifth in the 800m to qualify for the finals with times of 2:17.18 and 2:15.18, respectively. Dominique Jackson (56.40) and Tiffany Williams (56.40) finished seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 400m and qualified for the final heat as well. Jackson also earned a place in the 60m hurdles final with an eighth place finish at 8.95.

On the men's side, Kerry Gleason (8.03) and Jordan Washington (8.23) placed fourth and sixth in the 60m high hurdles to qualify for the finals. Gleason also qualified in the 400m with an eighth place finish at 48.76, while Tedrick Hawkins finished third with a mark of 48.34. Hawkins also qualified n the 200m, where he placed sixth with a mark of 21.57. Aaron Piper placed fifth with a time of 21.54 to qualify in the 200m run, as well as placing eighth in the 60m dash with a mark of 6.81. Sam Smethers notched a PR in the 60m high hurdles with a time of 8.42.

The distance runners had a strong day on the track as well, starting with the women's 5000m run, where Brittany Innis placed fifth with a time of 17:30.50 to set a new PR, and teammate Samantha Ottman just missed the top eight with a ninth place finish, courtesy of a PR mark of 17:36.09. In the women's mile run, the trio of Taryn Surratt, Kelsey Ramirez and Christina Hernandez all qualified for the finals. Ramirez finished third with a mark of 5:05.10, followed by Surratt in eighth at 5:07.38 and Hernandez in 10^th at 5:07.90. In the men's mile run, Titus Kiplagat qualified for the finals with an eighth place finish at 4:20.82, a PR for the freshman.

Getting SFA off to a great start in the morning were the SFA multi-athletes, as a pair of pentathletes and five heptathletes made a habit of setting new PRs on the day. Caitlin Lennon and Sammi Brashears each competed at a high level, setting PR's in the pentathlon on the way to fifth and eighth place finishes, respectively. Lennon set new personal bests in all five events on the day, while Brashears moved from a 13^th place ranking down to eighth in the 800m race to win her heat and secure a point for her team.

The five heptathletes had their own successes on the day, led by the efforts of Hunter Key and Tanner Parks, who sit at second and fifth heading into the tomorrow's conclusion of the event. Parks set a new PR in the long jump with a mark of 6.78m, while Key notched new personal bests in all four events.

Competing well in the long jump, Isaiah Pittman and Denzel Green finished second and fifth in the event with marks of 7.32m (24'-0.25") and 7.10m (23'-3.50"), respectively. Placing fourth in the high jump was Noah Berney, who cleared a height of 2.04m (6'-8.25").

Last but not least, the SFA men's throwers both placed in the top eight for the shot put. Kevin Steward notched a mark of 16.31m (53'-06.25") to finish fifth, while Ben Bibby moved up five spots in the rankings to clinch the eighth and final scoring spot with a PR effort of 15.57m (51'-01.00").

Day two gets underway tomorrow with the final three men's heptathlon events starting at 8:30 a.m., field event finals beginning at 10 a.m. and running event finals from noon until 4:05 p.m.

-SFA-