May 16, 2008
Results
CARBONDALE, Ill. -
Senior Frannie Epps highlighted Illinois States performances at the 2008 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by Southern Illinois at Lew Hartzog Track in Carbondale, Ill., Friday. The ISU men are in fourth place (18 points) while the women are in third place (20 points) with four Redbirds taking home all-conference accolades in the first day of competition.
Head Illinois State track and field coach Elvis Forde was pleased with the performances and efforts of his student-athletes and hopes that the efforts continue throughout the weekend.
"We had a good day and a good start to the championships," said Forde. "I hope that when the rest of the kids watched the 10K runners they realized that every effort counts and that they can build off the performances that we saw today."
Epps capped off her senior season with a career-best and second-place finish in the javelin throw, launching a distance of 144-02 feet and earning eight points for the Redbird women.
"I think that Frannie did not want to leave this meet without a medal," said Forde. "It has been a disappointing season with injury keeping her out the heptathlon. I think that she made the most out of her season and really finished her senior season strong."
In the final event of the evening, the 10,000-meter runners took the show. In the women's 10K senior Suzy Turner was runner up with a career-best 35:42.80, a time that places her with the No. 3 all time performance at ISU. Northern Iowa's Traci Hawley (35:16.68) took first as the two both finished the race breaking the MVC meet record, which was set in 2004 (35:44.89).
The men's 10K was a strategic race as freshman Matt Mroczynski and sophomore Scott Krapf used teamwork to lead all competitors for the first 12 laps with Southern Illinois Jeff Schirmer tight on their heels. Schirmer made a move to take second and overtook Mroczynski with 13 laps left, but Krapf still had the lead. The race really heated up with five laps left to run with Krapf and Schirmer in a flat out fight for the finish. Krapf had the lead with the last 400-meter to go but Schirmer, held on and kicked out the last 300 meters to win the event (30:07.50).
Krapf fished as runner up with a time of 30:14.00, while Mroczynski took fifth with a personal-best time of 30:28.78. The distance duo earned ISU 12 points with their efforts in the 25 lap event.
"It was great watching two great guys run a strong race," said Forde. "Scott had a gallant performance and Matt had a great effort and was just picked out of fourth place. It is tough though, we really wanted to see those guys win a championship, but it makes you realize that every effort matters. I have to give it to Jeff Schirmer, he ran a great race and had a great surge at the end."
After setting personal-bests in two of four events sophomore Morgan Schaefer is in sixth place in the heptathlon with 2625 points. Schaefer started the day running a personal-best 16.28 (seventh-place finish) in the 100-meter hurdles, she then placed third in the high jump clearing a personal-best height of 5-04.25. In the final two events she threw the shot put 30-06.25 to take seventh and placed sixth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 27.27. The heptathlon will conclude tomorrow with the long jump, javelin throw and 800-meter run.
In the women's field events, junior Samantha Springer threw the hammer a distance of 178-11 to take fifth place and scored four points. Teammate freshman Sonja Zoric, also made the finals in the hammer to place 10th with a personal-best throw of 160-03.
On the men's side, senior Anton Walczak took third place in the hammer throw launching a distance of 187-06, while Bryan Chancellor threw a personal-best 176-03 to take ninth place.
Freshman Danny Lindsey achieved a personal-best throw in the finals of the javelin throw, launching a distance of 168-00 for a 10th place finish.
The Redbirds will be back in action tomorrow, the heptathlon will kick off the day for ISU at noon and will be preceded by the field events scheduled to begin at 3:30 p.m. and the running events at 5:30 p.m.
