Men's track wins championship and women place third

The Southeast Missouri State men's track and field team came home champions from the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championship meet Feb. 28 and the women's team finished third. This is the third OVC championship for the men's team, and the second in a row under coach Eric Crumpecker.

Crumpecker earned his second-straight OVC Men's Indoor Coach of the Year award at the meet, which he shared with Eastern Illinois coach Tom Akers.

"I'm happy to get it," Crumpecker said. "That is not why I'm into it [though]. I am just happy our men's team won the championship. That's all I really care about, it's icing on the cake."

Crumpecker was pleased with the great performance that the men's team put on at the championship meet that was hosted by Eastern Illinois.

"Winning up there is not an easy thing to do," Crumpecker said. "Eastern Illinois up there on their home track and they weren't going to go quietly, wasn't anything easy about it."

The men won the meet by 12 points to runner up Eastern Illinois. Crumpecker went on to say "the women competed well and did a lot of great things to set up for outdoor."

Junior Ayonna Cartwright was one of the members of the women's team who won the 200-meter dash and 60-meter dash. Cartwright went on to not only win the 60-meter dash, but also break the OVC Championship record.

"I was really in shock, I wasn't going out there to break a record," Cartwright said. "I was just going out there to compete and win."

Cartwright set the new record for the OVC championship in the 60-meter dash at 7.24 seconds.

"I got to stay humble and hungry," Cartwright said.

Cartwright was not the only one to break a record at the OVC championships.

Senior Blake Smith broke the men's 60-meter dash record for the OVC championship meet.

"It just shows that a lot of hard work has paid off," Smith said. "God has placed everyone of us in a position, where we are put there for a specific reason. Being on the podium and representing and everybody knowing what I stand for is just giving greater glory to God."

Smith had won the 60-meter dash in last year's indoor championship meet but did not break the record. This year his time of 6.65 seconds was good enough to break the record set in 2009 by Zye Boey of Eastern Illinois with a time of 6.67 seconds.

Southeast men's pole vaulting squad made a clean sweep in the event taking home the gold, silver and bronze medals.

Coming in first with a vault of 16-4 3/4 was junior Christian Locke. His teammates freshman Tyler Jourdan and sophomore Duncan Ross were behind him with vaults of 15-11 and 15-5.

"It was pretty sweet," Locke said. "My dad told me I was the first pole vault champion from Southeast in 11 years. I just love that my two teammates are right behind me."

Locke, Jourdan and Ross have great chemistry on and off the track.

"In practice, we have great chemistry. We call each other the vault squad. Every day after practice we have a break down, like a basketball chant 'One, two, three vault squad,'" Locke said. "We hang out around after school and stuff, too. We are all good friends and we are all pretty close. We love to have fun and jump high."

The pole vault and 60-meter dash were just two of the seven gold medals the men's team brought home.

The women's team collected three gold medals at the meet counting Cartwright's win in the 60-meter dash and the 200-meter dash.

Southeast is now transitioning into the longer outdoor season of track and field and the team has its hopes high.

"We typically are a stronger outdoor team than we are indoor, and I don't think it will be any different this year." Crumpecker said. "There is no guarantee just cause we won indoor that we will do anything outdoor. We got to start over and get ready for May 15 and see what happens."

The outdoor season will begin March 19 when Southeast travels to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, for the Alabama Relays. Last season both the men and women's teams came home as OVC Outdoor Champions. This year, the championships will be held on May 15.

"Every season is totally different indoor to outdoor it is a totally different meet between the two," Crumpecker said. "We just got to go back to work here and reestablish our base a little bit. Get our legs back under us and get ready for the long outdoor season."