Smith sprints to 7th in nation

~ The Southeast junior earned All-America honors for indoor track.

FAYETEVILLE, Ark. -- Southeast Missouri State junior Miles Smith finished seventh Saturday night in a power-packed 400-meter field at the NCAA indoor track and field championships.

Smith, who had secured All-American honors the day before by advancing to the finals, timed 46.44 seconds, which was a bit off the school-record mark of 46.28 he ran in the preliminaries.

"We wanted to run a little faster. You always want to do better," Southeast coach Joey Haines said. "But last year he was 11th, and this year he was seventh, so we're ahead of where we were last year.

"We started Miles' training later this year, to give him time to recover from the summer he had. To make All-American is quite an accomplishment."

Smith also claimed All-American honors during last year's outdoor season, when he placed fifth at the NCAA meet.

Smith went on to earn a gold medal as a member of the U.S. 1,600-meter relay team that finished first at last summer's world championships.

LSU's Xavier Carter won Saturday's race in 45.28 seconds. Rounding out the top three were Indiana's David Neville (45.67) and TCU's Lewis Banda (45.85).

"This was an unbelievable field. The 400 meters is always one of the top events at the NCAA meet," Haines said. "The winner tonight ran the seventh- or eighth-fastest time ever indoors, and Friday night there were the top three times in the world this year.

"It shows how far Miles has come when you're disappointed with seventh in the nation. But he's right on schedule. We'll start working for the outdoor season now, and we think Miles is in for a big year."