The Illinois State men?s track team was the surprise after day one of the 2003 Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championship in Horton Field House after finishing day one of competition in second place. With 33 team points, the Redbird men are just nine points away from Indiana State, who sits in first, while on the women?s side, the lady ?Birds are in sixth with 17 points. Indiana State is tied for first place with Northern Iowa on the women?s side with 40 points.
Lauren Maul was the lone Redbird champion on day one in the meet. With a mark of 19-4 3/4, which is a season and personal best, Maul won the long jump event. Other Redbird highlights include Brittney Hourd who placed 12th in the long jump and Melanie Zimmerman who came in 17th. Danielle Miller placed 8th in the high jump for Illinois State while Tori Gaumer was 10th.
JaRod Tobler was third in the long jump for the men with a mark of 23-10 1/4 while Gergely Bata and Pierre Woods both tied for second in the high jump (6-10 1/4).
In the women?s weight throw, Latisha Johnson failed to make the finals after fouling out in the preliminaries. On the men?s side, Joe Drevlow placed fourth with a toss of 57-6 1/2. Josh Mastison and Beth Hilton of Indiana State took home first place in the weight throw for each respective gender while Hilton broke the Horton Field House record with her throw that went 62-9 1/2. The previous record stood at 61-9 3/4.
In the pole vault, Tyler Gaumer was eighth for Illinois State while his sister, Tori, was fifth on the women?s side. Robin Whalen also competed in the pole vault for ISU and finished sixth. Ray Scotten of Southern Illinois finished first (16-11 1/2) while Kayleen Popp of Northern Iowa was first for the women (11-11 3/4).
In the distance medley, the Redbird men placed second with a time of 10:03.58 while the women came in fourth with a time of 11:40.86. In other distance events, John Shaffer finished the 5000 meters with a time of 15:17.02, good for tenth while Walter Ogola was 14th with a time of 15:42.32.
In qualifying events for the Redbirds on the women?s side, a ?Bird qualified for the final in every event except the 60-meter dash. Cherise Devers will run in the 200 meters while Andrea Mosher qualified in the 400 meters. Jen Klostermann ran the fastest time in the 800 meters in the preliminaries (2:15.56) and will run for the championship on Saturday while Lauren Maul will run the 60-meter hurdles.
For the men, Lashawn Bullock will run the 60-meter dash, and Dan Tripp and Miklos Konkoly will run in the 800 meters.
Illinois State head coach Elvis Forde was pleased with his team?s accomplishments after the first day but admitted to being a little stunned at the men?s score after his Redbirds were picked to finish fifth in the coaches poll and disappointed in certain feats.
?I don?t know if there are quite surprises in terms of how we performed today but maybe some disappointments,? Forde said. ?Latisha (Johnson) was a big hope for us and she was very disappointed after fouling out of the weight throw. That hurt tremendously. We know at championship time some of those things will happen.
?Other then that I thought we got what we needed out of the kids today,? Forde continued. ?We have a lot of people in the finals tomorrow. The events will have a lot of our kids and that is what we work for. We look forward to some strong efforts tomorrrow from the girls. We have to be excited on the girls? side, but on the men?s side, we don?t have as many finalists so you can?t get your best performances when you have kids missing from events. We only hope the kids who are performing on Saturday give us their best.?
The meet resumes at 11 a.m. in field house on Saturday with the shot put and concludes at 2:55 p.m. with the 4x400 relays.
