SOUTHEAST ATHLETICS CELEBRATES OVC FEATS

Another stellar athletic season at Southeast Missouri State University was celebrated Thursday night.

Approximately 900 athletes, coaches, parents and Southeast Booster Club members were on hand at the Show Me Center for the 1998 Southeast Booster Club Athletic Awards Banquet.

As in the past few years, the school's women's athletic program took front and center stage as the Otahkians captured their fourth consecutive Ohio Valley Conference women's all-sports championship this year.

That's quite a feat, since Southeast is in only its seventh season of OVC and NCAA Division I competition. And it sets a conference record for most consecutive women's all-sports titles by one school.

But this year the Southeast men's athletic program also had some heady accomplishments, with the basketball team compiling only its second winning record on the Division I level and the baseball team winning its first OVC Tournament championship.

And the baseball team still has a chance to do something no Southeast men's squad has done since the school made the jump to Division I -- qualify for the NCAA Tournament.

The baseball Indians will host Southern University in a best-of-three play-in series tonight and Saturday. The winner earns a berth in the NCAA tourney.

While baseball was the only Southeast men's team to win an OVC title this school year, the women once again had several league championship squads.

Winning women's OVC titles during the 1997-98 school year were the volleyball, softball, indoor track and outdoor track teams. All repeated championships from last season.

Southeast's volleyball team captured its fifth straight OVC regular-season championship while the Otahkian softball squad claimed its fourth consecutive OVC regular-season title and also won its third straight league tournament crown.

The Otahkians' indoor and outdoor track teams won OVC titles for the second year in a row.

Southeast women's coaches garnered three OVC Coach of the Year honors, with Joey Haines winning two, for indoor and outdoor track. Lana Richmond earned the award for softball.

The Otahkians also had a Player of the Year honor as volleyball standout Tuba Meto garnered the award for the second year in a row.

Christine Engelhardt was honored as the school's initial first-team Academic All-America on the Division I level, an award for her exploits during the 1996-97 school year.

Among the special awards presented Thursday were the Jewell Award and Trombetta Award, given each year to the senior male and female athlete with the highest grade-point average for their career.

Golfer Mike Brown won the Jewell Award with a 3.628 GPA while softball player Erin Frazier earned the Trombetta Award with a 3.756 GPA.

A complete list of all the individual awards for each sport appears in `Scoreboard.'