Senior Ashton Wilson ignited the momentum in the first day of the OVC Indoor Championship for the Panthers, when he started with a sixth-place finish in the heptathlon 60-meter dash crossing the line in 7.70 seconds.

Wilson was injury plagued most of his junior season, but he refused this season to let it repeat. Wilson competed hard throughout the rest of the heptathlon finishing fourth in long jump (5.92 meters) and shot put (10.37 meters), and third in the high jump (1.94 meters).

The heptathlon will conclude Thursday.

For the women’s program, senior Jasmine Woodley began with a third-place finish in the women’s weight throw finals with 17.88 meters.

Senior Cedric Johnson started the season strong, then struggled in the middle of the season, but he refused to let that be the case for the 60-meter hurdles. Johnson finished the preliminaries in fourth place.

Finishing ahead of Johnson, freshman Jekel Suber finished second in the 60-meter hurdle preliminaries with his time of 8.29 seconds. Both Suber and Johnson qualified for the finals Thursday.

In the women’s 60-meter hurdle, two women Panthers finished in fourth and fifth place. Seniors Pedra Hicks and Kristen Dowell both finished with times of 8.79 seconds in their respective heats, qualifying for the finals Thursday.

In Eastern’s track and field program history, Tom Akers won 17 OVC Indoor Championships, and his successor, Brenton Emanuel, is hoping to deliver another one this year to Eastern and make Akers, the alumni and the university proud.
After the first day of the OVC Indoor Championship, the men are in fourth place and the women are in seventh place. The last day of the OVC Indoor Championship will begin today at 9 a.m.

Blake Faith can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected]