Redhawks softball nips UTM

MARTIN, Tenn. -- The Southeast Missouri State softball team slipped past host Tennessee-Martin 6-5 on Sunday to complete its first Ohio Valley Conference series victory in more than a month.

Southeast posted its only other OVC series win March 17 and 18 when it took two of three from visiting Samford to begin league play.

The Redhawks (15-25, 7-13) remained ninth in the 10-team OVC. Only the top six finishers qualify for the conference tournament, an event Southeast has never missed.

Southeast, which split Saturday's doubleheader with the Skyhawks (24-27, 10-9), banged out 14 hits, including home runs from Stacia Dopudja and Lindsay Pickering.

Dopudja, a freshman, leads the Redhawks in homers with 11, which ties junior Michelle Summers for the single-season school record.

Summers, who has nine homers this year, also holds the Redhawks' career mark with 30.

Dopudja, Pickering and Summers all went 3-for-4 with two RBIs.

Elaine Fisher notched her second win of the series, allowing nine hits and four earned runs while pitching all seven innings. She struck out four and walked none.

Southeast hosts Memphis on Tuesday in a 3 p.m. nonconference doubleheader before hosting first-place Tennessee Tech this weekend in an OVC series.

Track at Vanderbilt

The Southeast track program had 13 top-10 finishes over the weekend at the Vanderbilt Invitational.

Whitney Thomas had the top finish by the women with a third place in the 100-meter hurdles in a time of 14.28 seconds. Ore Ibe was sixth (14.47).

Lindsay Zeiler was sixth in the 1,500 (4:33.51) and Juli Koenegstein was sixth in the steeplechase (11:05.30).

Rebecca Martin, a Jackson High School product, placed 10th in the javelin (114-2), while the 400 relay team was seventh (47.27).

Freshman Brandon Colbert paced the Southeast men with a third-place finish in the discus with a throw of 163 feet, 8 inches. He was ninth in the shot put (51-10).

Bilal Hameed was fourth in the triple jump (48-11 3/4), John Berry was fifth in the long jump (23-8 1/4), Jon Henfling was ninth in the javelin (167-6), David Reid placed 10th in the 200 (21.53) and the 400 relay squad finished sixth (41.20).

Southeast's men placed 14th out of 26 teams, while Southeast's women were 15th out of 24 squads.

-- From staff reports