Track teams sprint to first place at Friday Night Special

Mark Shanahan, Staff Reporter

The men’s and women’s track and field teams each captured first place Friday at the Friday Night Special in Lantz Fieldhouse.

The women had a total of 110.50 points, which led them past Southern Illinois who had 57 and Indiana State with 53.50 points.

The men had a total of 83 points and Indiana State came in second with 49, Southern Illinois in third with 41.50 and an Ohio Valley Conference member, Murray State, had a single point with one competitor at the meet.

Freshman Nyjah Lane finished first in the 60-meter and 200-meter runs for the women. Lane was focused the most on her starts for the 60-meter dash.

“(Friday) I was just really working on my block starts, because my block starts haven’t really been too strong,” she said. “I practiced really hard (Thursday), so I felt confident coming into my race.”

Lane was happy about how her 60-meter dash went and is uncertain, but hopeful that she will compete in conference next weekend.

“I don’t really think when I race. I just kind of just go, but I took off and I felt like I had a good start so I kept going from there,” she said. “I’m really happy about my time, and I’m really happy about my hard work and that it’s actually paying off.”

Her goal in the 60-meter was to have a good start, and that was what happened for Lane on Friday.

“I stayed humble and I stayed focused and it paid off in the end,” she said. “My goal is just to have a good block start and to come out and go fast.”

The men dominated the 60-meter dash having sophomore’s Jonathon Boey, Chris Ilunga-Matthiesen and Jamal Robinson finishing first, second and third, respectively.

Boey had a final time of 6.82 seconds beating his preliminary time of 6.88 seconds.

“I felt kind of nervous only because I felt like a lot of pressure was on me,” he said. “I’m trying to focus on going to conference and trying to break a record, and set a new record at conference.”

Boey will compete in conference next weekend and said is happy about his 60-meter performance.

“During the race I felt great,” he said. “I had a little stumble off the blocks but after that, I picked it up and I just ran. Overall, I feel like I ran a good race.”

Junior Amy Yeoman had a first place finish in the 600 with a new personal best time of 1:37.44. Junior, Angelica Anyaogu is now fifth in school history in the long jump with her jump of 19-00.00 feet.

Both teams will now get ready for the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championship, which is held at Lantz Fieldhouse. Eastern will only be allowed to have 30 competitors.

 

Mark Shanahan can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].