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Championship Run
May 6, 2007
NACOGDOCHES - While a dominating afternoon in the discus and triple jump helped propel Texas State's women's track team into the meet lead, it was a strong performance in the running events that would allow the Bobcats to garner the program's fourth Women's Southland Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championship team title. Texas State was in third place, more than 20 points back of leader and meet host Stephen F. Austin following Saturday's events. But Texas State's field performance put the squad way out in front en route to scoring 177.50 points. Sam Houston State scored 124 points to finish second while SFA was third with 123 points. Texas State's men scored 60 points to finish eighth. Texas-Arlington scored 128 points to win the men's championship by one point over second-place Texas-San Antonio. In the women's discus Sunday, Texas State senior Abby Ruston survived a personal-best performance by teammate Katie Hanie on the freshman's final throw to win her second individual title of the championship. She had a winning throw of 50.96 meters to top Hanie's final throw of 50.43 meters. Jiovanna Martinez added a fourth-place finish in the discus for the Bobcats to give Texas State 23 points in the event. Ruston won the shot put Saturday. The Bobcat women also dominated the triple jump. Tamequa Poole won the event with a jump of 12.23 meters while teammates Sara Olayiwola and Sonetriya Mayfield also earned all-conference honors as the `Cats went one-two-three. Alaysha Ford and Ashley Austin also scored points for Texas State in the event. The Bobcats scored 29 points in the triple jump alone.
The running event finals did not begin well for Texas State's women. The first running event final was the 4x100 meter finals and the Bobcats were disqualified for starting outside the zone. But from there, Texas State went on to claim two individual running titles and capped the meet by claiming the 4x400 relay title. Liudmila Litvinova won the 400 meter run with a time of 53.74 while Katya Kostetskaya bettered her day-old conference meet record in the 800 meters. In Saturday's prelims, Kostetskaya broke the meet record with a time of 2:09.49, topping the 13-year old record mark of 2:09.62 set by Texas State's Inez Turner. Sunday, Kostetskaya clocked a time of 2:08.10 to win the championship. Litvinova and Kostetskaya combined with Lait Anav and Courtney Baker to win the 4x400 meter relay with an NCAA Midwest Regional qualifying time of 3:41.60. Also in Sunday's running finals, Camilla Davis earned a pair of all-Southland Conference honors, placing third in the 100 meters (11.71) and 200 meters (24.10). Her performance in the 100 meters qualified her for the NCAA Regionals. On the men's side, Robert Melin claimed his second individual title of the SLC championship, winning the discus with a throw of 54.51 meters. |
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