Connie Price-Smith said the Saluki track and field team did not run its fastest or throw its furthest in the season’s humble beginnings.

Yet, the SIU women’s track and field team accumulated one event title after another en route to fulfilling its one goal – a Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Championship.

The women’s team’s first outdoor championship since 1996 provided the Salukis with a triumphant ending to a season that brought the team an indoor and outdoor championship while crowning head coach Connie Price-Smith with a pair of MVC Women’s Coach of the Year awards.

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Price-Smith said repeating the team’s indoor efforts was a difficult task, but it was a challenge the Salukis were willing to meet head-on.

‘I felt it was ours to win,’ the Saluki head coach said. ‘We didn’t necessarily have the points on paper, but I knew we had the ability to get those points with the individuals we had.’

The Saluki throwers highlighted the team’s second conference title this season as they swept the top three spots and had four athletes notch top-10 finishes.

Gwen Berry won the event with a regional-qualifying toss of 193 feet, 11 inches, while teammates Sasha Leeth and Jeneva McCall finished second and third, respectively. Olga Ciura finished fifth with a throw that measured 167 feet, 8 inches and Jordan Harris rounded out the throwing squad an eighth place finish.

McCall earned an individual title in the shot put with a throw that measured 49 feet, 11.25 inches.

Senior jumper Bianca Stuart conquered the long jump for the third consecutive year with a leap that measured 20 feet, 5.75 inches. Meredith Hayes dashed past the competition in the 100-meter hurdles with a first-place finish in 13.50 seconds.

Stuart and Hayes made their respective marks across the Valley’s leaderboards. Stuart also excelled as a sprinter, finishing fifth in the 100-meter dash while teaming with Hayes, Miracle Thompson and Malaikah Love for a third-place finish in the 4×100-meter relay.

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Love also finished second in the triple jump with a NCAA regional-qualifying leap that measured 41 feet, 3 inches.

The SIU men captured five individual titles en route to a second place finish in the outdoor games.

The Saluki men were edged by pre-tournament favorite Northern Iowa.

Price-Smith said the pre-tournament predictions, which pegged the Saluki women to finish second and the men to finish third, helped motivate the team to perform beyond the selection committee’s expectations.

‘The kids, they look at it and they go out and work a little bit harder,’ she said. ‘They know every point counts and so every one of them knows they can contribute just by going in and competing hard and doing their best that day. It makes them rise to the occasion.’

Jeff Schirmer won his third-straight 10,000-meter run title, besting the field in 30:59.18, while also picking up his second-straight conference title in the 5,000-meter run.

In total, the men’s and women’s team’s combined for nine individual titles and 30 all-conference honors.

Even though the indoor and outdoor seasons are in the books, several Salukis still have work to be done beyond the conference season. SIU will send 17 student-athletes to the NCAA Regional Championships, which will be held this upcoming weekend in Louisville, Ky.