“We’re in the best shape we’ve been all year,” head coach John Craft said. For the women’s indoor track team, this is indeed good news.

Eastern will finish an injury-plagued year by hosting the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships this weekend in Lantz Fieldhouse.

“I’ve never had this many injuries in one season,” Craft said. “But the girls are excited to be healthy and competing again this weekend.”

While the injuries are subsiding, the jumpers are building up momentum heading into this weekend, starting last weekend at Eastern’s Friday Night Special meet.

While battling through a hamstring injury last week, Marissa Bushue came through with the top performance in the long jump and the triple jump, and Craft says Bushue is just about at full strength. Cynthia McGee set a personal best in the high jump even with a fractured toe, and sprinters Leah Reeves and Lexie Nuckolls each returned from illnesses to compete last week.

“Cynthia had an excellent week of practice,” Craft said. “She is really confident and ready to jump this weekend.”

But last week’s performance is in the past and the team must now put full concentration onto this weekend.

“When it comes to sports, it’s hard to predict too much, that’s why we have the meets,” Craft said. “Last week doesn’t mean anything. You’re only as good as your next competition.”

Being close to full strength is critical for the Panthers to have a chance to defeat Southeast Missouri State, the defending champions and winners of three of the last four OVC championships.

One area where Eastern looks to get ahead and earn points to battle SEMO is in the distance events.

“We have to have people score on the distance side,” Craft said. “We’re really counting on Beth Martin, Lauren Rapacki and Nicole Milici.”

The field events have also been a strong asset to Eastern’s team. An encouraging sign for the Panthers was the performance of the throwers last weekend. At the first home meet of the year, several throwers scored personal best performances and the team will look to continue that success.

“They finally had a chance to practice regularly,” student assistant Keisha Dunlap said when asked about the throwers’ improvement. “I was really proud of them.”

The OVC championship will start at 4 p.m. Friday and continue at 11 a.m. on Saturday morning in Lantz Fieldhouse.

For Eastern, this will be the second meet hosted in the renovated fieldhouse. While last week’s meet ran smoothly, there was a slight problem with the new scoreboard. One of the lower panels that displays information was not working, and the system had trouble relaying specific information, (such as names and lanes), to the scoreboard. The system will be rechecked and should be fully operational for the OVC championship.