While SIUC students were busy returning to campus, the men and women’s track and field teams were busy trying to send their competition home without first place trophies.

The women’s team rang in the new year by blowing away the competition at the 1996 Saluki Boosters Invitational with a final tally of 167 points.

Georgia Tech placed second behind SIUC to finish with 105 points, and the Universities of Missouri and Mississippi finished third and fourth consecutively.

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Junior sprinter Lesley Batson took first place in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.13 seconds, and senior Joy Williamson collected 20 points by winning both the long jump and triple jump with distances of 19′ 6 and 38′ 9 to add to the overwhelming victory of the team.

It’s a happy day, women’s coach Don DeNoon said. The kids really came together and they did what they were supposed to do, he said. In fact, I think they rose above what my expectation was.

We had some victories that I felt were kind of hollow in that some performances were not that great, but sometimes you’ve got to sharpen people up for a week or two to get top performances, DeNoon said.

DeNoon said he felt going into this season this year’s team is probably the best team he has coached at SIUC.

Beating Southeast Conference schools shows that we can put it together, DeNoon said.

Entering the weekend, the SIUC men’s squad welcomed the opportunity to take on the defending NCAA champion Georgia Tech and the field of opposing talent.

SIUC men’s coach Bill Cornell expressed his view of the weekend meet for his team preceeding the meet.

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It’s hard to say who will win, Cornell said. I’m hoping we’ll be competitive like we have been the last six years, but really any team could win. It just depends on what kind of condition the kids have kept themselves in during the five week break.

As the meet began, Cornell expressed some disappointment.

Early on in the meet, I was down in the dumps; I thought we were going to get wiped out by a lot of teams.

Cornell soon had no reason for concern as his team quickly picked up the pace and settled in behind Mississippi State, who won with 123.5 points, to claim second place with 91 points.

Defending champion Georgia Tech finished a close third with 85 points, just ahead of Missouri who collected 83.5 points.

One of the most exciting events of the afternoon was watching the men’s high jump competition, as three of the top four finishers were from SIUC.

Sophomore Neophytos Kalogerou led the charge of excitement clearing a height of 7′ 1-3/4 to claim victory in the event and earn an NCAA championship provisional score, which is an alternate score for the NCAA’s.

Cornell said that the winning jump by Neophytos Kalogerou was good public relations for him, especially for the first meet of the new year.

Freshman Rodney White and senior Cameron Wright placed second and fourth in the high jump competition adding 22 points to the team’s score.

As Cornell spoke about the season ahead, he was optimistic about his team and its performances.

We should do well if everyone does what they’re capable of doing, Cornell said. We don’t need to shy away from the conference championships. Northern Iowa is going to be tough to beat, and Illinois State will be tough to beat.

There is definitely room for improvement on our team seeing how we finished second, he said. This meet simply tells us how hard the athletes worked over the break.