Southeast men settle for third

The Southeast Missouri State men's track and field team finished third at the Ohio Valley Conference meet Saturday.

The Redhawks entered Saturday with the lead, but Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Illinois passed them.

"We're struggling with some injury situations," Southeast coach Joey Haines said. "We didn't have [All-American] Miles [Smith] with us. It caused me to make some lineup changes because of that. We put some people in extra events, and we ran out of gas at the end."

Southeast still was in position for a second-place finish heading into the final event, the 4x400.

"Our No. 1 mile relay has run 7 or 8 seconds faster than the second-place relay," Haines said. "[Chris] Gill injured a hamstring and wasn't able to finish the race. He was running the anchor leg. Had he been able to finish, we would have been second."

The Southeast women's team finished sixth out of nine teams.

Gill, a junior, and senior Chris Poindexter led the Redhawks' charge before Gill's injury. Gill won the 400 meters in 48.89 seconds. Poindexter was second (49.16).

In the 200, Gill took second (21.80), while Poindexter was third (22.34).

Junior Bilal Hameed won the triple jump, covering 14.89 meters. Freshman Tyler Terry was fifth (13.88), followed by sophomore Antoine Smith in sixth (13.65).

"Bilal was ranked second going in and pulled off the upset," Haines said.

The Redhawks swept the top two spots in the weight throw, with sophomore Brandon Colbert winning the event with a throw of 17.76. Senior Andy Croxford was second (16.42), junior Andy Glass fourth (15.56) and junior Richard Martin fifth (14.87).

"Our field guys really came through," Haines said. "Andy Glass had a great meet for us in the weight and the shot put. Colbert won both of those events."

Freshman Dustin Davis was seventh in the men's 3,000 (8:44.17).

On the women's side, junior Whitney Thomas won the 55 hurdles in 8.11.

Tennessee State won the meet with 128 points, followed by Eastern Illinois (86.5) and Jacksonville State (78). Southeast finished with 68.5 points.

"On the women's side, we had a horrendous meet [Friday], which got us in a hole," Haines said.

Junior Juli Koenegstein was fourth in the mile (5:08.37) and sixth in the 3,000 (10:24.86).

Junior Precious Elliott took fourth in the 55 dash (7.19).

Ashley Brewer, a sophomore, took fourth in the weight throw (17.36), while freshman Brianna Egbuka was fifth (15.77).

Sophomore Lashonda Conley took fifth in the 400 (58.59).

Sophomore Audrey Harwood finished third in the pole vault (11-0), while freshman Lauren McNamara was fifth (9-6).

The Redhawks took third in the 4x400, finishing in 3:53.52. Conley, Jerica Hamm, Kelley Good and Orie Ibe competed for Southeast.

-- From staff reports