The Saluki track and field team began its season with the Saluki Fast Start meet and swept both the high jump and pole vault events Saturday at the Student Recreation Center.

The team claimed a total of 10 events. Junior Alex Lietz won the men’s pole vault with a height of 4.60 meters.

Freshman pole-vaulter Chad Weaver also cleared that height, but Lietz cleared it on his first try, while Weaver needed a second attempt.

Sophomore Kemar Jones successfully high jumped over 1.99 meters for first place.

On the women’s side, senior jumper Kenya Culmer jumped 1.75 meters on her first attempt. Her teammate, freshman Katie Trupp finished third in the high jump at 1.65 meters, but also won the women’s pole vault by clearing 3.65 meters.

Trupp said she was excited to win her first collegiate track meet, and did not know what to expect since she was not familiar with her competition. She said overall, she was not completely thrilled with her height, but she is going to work hard.

“I really want to jump around 13 feet this year,” Trupp said. “If I’m jumping what I want to jump, it should place me in conference this year.”

The Saluki throwing team also picked up two events. There were some unattached athletes on the men’s side who won both the weight throw and the shot put, but the team had the highest collegiate finisher in both of those as well.

Junior thrower DeAnna Price captured both the shot put and weight throw on the women’s side. Her best weight throw was 20.60 meters, which was more than a meter better than the second place finisher, her teammate and fellow junior, Sophia Lozano.

Sophomore thrower Josh Freeman, who won a gold medal in the Junior Pan American games this summer, was second overall in the meet. Freeman said overall, he was not completely satisfied with himself. He said he was happy with the team, and thinks both the men’s and women’s side has a great chance at capturing the conference title.

“As a team we competed really well,” Freeman said. “We had a few people that came up and had some big (personal records).”

Several times at the meet, everyone started applauding. Freeman started clapping before his final throw, and said it usually helps him make better throws.

“You know everybody is watching you and you feel like you’re in the spotlight,” Freeman said. “It gets the adrenaline going. It’s something in track and field that everybody does when it is a big moment.”

The Saluki runners had a lot of close races as well. The women runners won a total of three events, and the men captured one.

The team placed five of the top seven finishers in the women’s 200-meter dash, including junior sprinter Nirupama Sunderraj. Sunderraj sprinted to the finish line in 25.47 seconds, and was less than four thousandths of a second away from winning.

The men’s 200-meter dash had three of the top four finishers.

Senior distance runner Alyssa Allison won the one-mile run with a time of 5:07.60 and said she used the opportunity as a winter warm up meet. Allison said she wants to improve her times on the middle laps of longer races.

“I really want to work on those middle laps,” Allison said. “Four through six is when the race gets the hardest, so I want to stay strong in the middle of the race and finish hard.”

Coach Connie Price-Smith said overall, she was pleased with the team, especially the freshmen that had good performances.

“We have a lot of young athletes on the team this year,” Price-Smith said. “I was really excited to see the aggression they had and the intensity they had.”

The Salukis will appear Jan 10-11 in Carbondale for the Saluki Open.