The women’s team blasted the field of competition as it scored 209 points, Indiana State University fell into second place with 152 points and Mississippi State lodged the third best overall score with 92 points. Eastern Illinois, Memphis, Murray State, and Emory filled the remaining slots.

On the men’s side, the Salukis, who scored 100.5 points, did not fare so well, as they stood behind second place Mississippi State who tallied 151 points, and winner Indiana State who slipped by MSU totaling 153.5 points. Memphis, Emory, and Murray State drew the fourth, fifth, and sixth positions respectively.

The SIUC women’s team was on a roll after grabbing 54 points from the first four events of the meet, and never looked back. An example of their continued success over the weekend was taking first, second, and third in the 400-meter dash.

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In the last event of the women’s meet, the 4×400-meter relay, the SIUC 4×400-meter relay A team finished second behind MSU in the event with a time of 3:55.37, but a pleasant sight to coach DeNoon was his B team, made up of four mid-distance runners, who had a fourth best time of 4:04.38 on the day in the relay

I had about 12 kids who were all supposed to be available for the 4×400-meter A and B, SIUC women’s coach Don DeNoon said. When we started moving people up to the A team, to fill three spots and that left basically my middle distance people, and it just happened that all four of them were ready to go.

Top individual performances for the women’s team were pulled in by junior sprinter Lesley Batson, who broke her own school record and qualified for the NCAA Championships with her time of 6.97 in the 55-meter dash.

Also turning a stellar performance was senior Joy Williamson, who won both the long jump, landing in at 19-1 1/2, and the triple jump, with a leap of 40-0 tying the eight-year-old school record.

Other top performances were turned in by sophomore mid-distance runner Mindy Bruck won the 600-meter run with a time of 1:36.19 which was a personal best for her.

It felt good to beat her (conference leader from Indiana State Kristin Heinichen) because the previous weekend she beat me, Bruck said. We’re neck and neck in races.

Bruck said the conditions for the race were not ideal.

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I’ve been ill, so I felt weak, Bruck said. If I set my mind to do something, then I’m going to do it.

Junior multi-event athlete Heather Greeling, who was sick with the flu according to DeNoon, won the Pentathlon on Friday with a total score of 3354 points. Greeling went on Saturday to place second in the triple jump (38-4), and third in the long jump (18-10).

DeNoon explained his team’s success early in the meet led to their success throughout the meet.

I didn’t have a team meeting at all this week, I didn’t really talk to the kids about the team, DeNoon said. I just talked to individuals and told them it was time to step up. This is a sport of individuals, and if the team comes together, it comes together. Success breeds success.

DeNoon explained why conference rival, Indiana State and athletic power MSU did not challenge the Salukis over the weekend.

Indiana State had a good meetwe just had a great meet, DeNoon said. They (Mississippi State) are just not very deep this year. When you play the numbers game like I do, you can get hurt somewhere along the line with different people getting injured, but when you have 16 full-ride athletes and get injured, you don’t have anywhere to go.

Although the women’s team won the meet by over 50 points, DeNoon said there is still room for improvement on his team.

I would hope that none of my athletes are satisfied, DeNoon said. We can be thankful with what we did, but we don’t have to be satisfied.

On the men’s side, coach Bill Cornell said he was realistic going into the meet. He said he had some good performances, but was let down by the overall performance of the team.

I knew coming into the meet that I wasn’t going to be satisfied with what they (the team) did today. There were some people who did a tremendous job, Cornell said.

Some of those on the SIUC men’s team who did have tremendous performances were junior Stelios Marneros, who won the 5,000-meter run with a time of 14:56.22.

The men’s high jump squad placed first, second, and third with senior Cameron Wright leaping to first place with a height of 7-3 3/4. Sophomores Neophytos Kalogerou and Rodney White jumped 6-11 and 6-9 respectively.

Senior triple jumper Jerome Kiaku leaped 47-11 1/4, placing second in the event.

Cornell had a team meeting after the meet to discuss the past season and the road ahead. He said the team’s reaction was, dead silence.

We’ve got no place for losers on our team, Cornell said. I told them they’re going to see the coaches get tougher on them the next couple of weeks. People are starting to think they can do their own thing, whining about little aches and painsall of that has got to stop.

We’ve got to get some team unity and a winning attitude, Cornell said. We’ve got some people who just haven’t been doing the job, and they have got to start doing it or ship out. If they don’t want to win, we don’t want them on the team.