The Eastern men grabbed their fourth straight Ohio Valley Conference indoor track championship over the weekend at Lantz Fieldhouse, while the women had a strong showing finishing third.

Southeast Missouri passed up defending women’s champion, Eastern Kentucky, and won its fourth conference championship in eight years. Each of the winners dominated their competition, winning by 60-plus points.

Overall, Eastern had six individual champions on the men’s side and three on the women’s. Junior Alicia Harris shined this weekend as she won the 200- and 400-meter runs, breaking the Lantz Field House record in the 400. Harris received OVC female track co-athelete of the year honors with SEMO’s shot and weight thrower, Heather Jenkins, who shared the award last year as well.

Tennessee State’s Nick Horton won the award on the men’s side for the second year in a row.

Eastern began the meet strong on Friday when sophomore Jason Stark won the men’s high jump, and junior Denise Jones took first in the women’s.

Stark couldn’t build on his strong start after he strained his hamstring on his first attempt in the long jump. Eastern sophomores Marcel Morgan and Monty Buckley picked up the slack, finishing first and third respectively in the long jump.

“Marcel gave us a big lift by stepping up and getting it done,” head coach Tom Akers said, who won his fourth straight OVC men’s track coach of the year.

Eastern’s men distance medley relay of Dan Strackeljahn, Jake Stout, Jermaine Jones and Kevin Atkins took first. In the final event of the day, senior Angie Simone took first in the women’s 5000 meter run.

At the end of the first day, Eastern’s men had a 25-point lead over second-place SEMO.

“If you don’t take care of business on Friday, then you can’t compete on Saturday,” Akers said. “But we knew Saturday would be a whole new track meet.”

The women found themselves in third place at the end of the first day, trailing first-place SEMO by 11.

“SEMO had a lot of qualifiers after the first day,” women’s head coach Mary Wallace said. “We were looking to try and grab second.”

The men’s field athletes on Saturday continued to step up and fill in for the injured Stark when freshman Obe Eruteya took first in the triple jump, and sophomore Justin Smith placed second.

In the afternoon, Strackeljahn, a sophomore, took first in the mile run with a convincing victory over Eastern Kentucky’s Steve Maina, who won OVC track co-athelete of the year in 2003.

“There were really good battles in nearly every event,” Akers said.

In the men’s 3,000 meter, Stout, a sophomore, electrified the Fieldhouse when he took first over Murray State’s Wesley Korir.

Going into the final 100 meters of the race, Stout, trailing by approximately five meters, started a kick that pushed him pass Korir, edging him out in a nearly photo finish. The crowd exploded as Stout sprinted though the finish beating Korir by only seven-hundredths of a second.

On the women’s side of the 3,000, Simone put in another strong effort finishing second.

“We moved some of our mile runners to the 3,000 to put our athletes in the best chances to score points,” Wallace said. “We just had to do what we could do and hope someone else screws up.”

In the end, though, Wallace and the women didn’t get the breaks they we’re hoping for and settled for third place.

“I was very pleased,” Wallace said. “I though it was a good showing from everyone who competed.”