Southeast Missouri State track and field team will attempt to defend OVC titles

Defending their Ohio Valley Conference outdoor track and field championships will not be an easy task for the Southeast Missouri State men's and women's track and field teams.

The OVC championships begin today in Clarksville, Tennessee, and conclude Saturday. Both Redhawks squads will try to end the regular season with their best team performance yet after a spring filled with injuries and illness.

Senior throwers Shon Kyle and Sarah Hall bring the titles of OVC co-field athlete of the year into the meet. Kyle shares the men's honor with SIUE's La'Derrick Ward while Hall and Austin Peay's Kaylnn Pitts share the award on the women's side.

"The nice thing about it is if we put it all together this weekend everybody forgets about the rest of the season," Southeast coach Eric Crumpecker said with a laugh.

Crumpecker described the outdoor season as "a struggle at times" with multiple athletes battling through injuries and a few suffering from mononucleosis and other illnesses, which left both teams struggling to get on the right track.

"The guys -- the injury bug has kind of gotten us a little bit," Crumpecker said. "I wish going into this weekend we had everybody healthy and I'd feel really good about it, but right now our men are probably a little bit the underdog, a little bit behind. It doesn't mean we can't pull it off, but it's going to be a little more difficult than I wish it was."

Crumpecker believes Eastern Illinois, which finished second to the Redhawks in last year's outdoor championships after winning the five previous years, is the team to beat on the men's side.

Multiple Southeast track athletes have struggled to compete with hamstring injuries and the Redhawks' most recent setback happened last week when Chris Navarro, who competes in a variety of events, injured his elbow.

Navarro will compete this weekend but Crumpecker is unsure how it will hold up in competition like the javelin. Navarro currently has the second-best javelin throw in the conference with a distance of 201 feet, 11 inches, set at the Vanderbilt Relays on March 27. His time of 14.45 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles from the ASU Red Wolf Open on April 24 ranks first in the conference.

The men's squad holds the top OVC ranking in four other events. Shon Kyle ranks first in the shot put (57-1/4) and discus (176-9).

Central graduate Chris Martin's distance of 50-6 3/4 in the triple jump and Jackson graduate Blake Smith's 100-meter dash time of 10.31 are the best in the conference heading into the championships. Jacob Kent's height of 6-8 3/4 ranks second in the high jump.

The Redhawks have the second-fastest times in both the 4x100-meter relay and 4x400-meter relay.

"We've got a lot of seniors on this team so I don't put anything past them," Crumpecker said. "If they want to show up this weekend and they want to get it done they can get it done. The people are here -- we've just got to put together a complete meet, which we really haven't done all year."

Crumpecker is equally optimistic about the chances of claiming the title on the women's side.

He feels the Redhawks are among five teams -- Eastern Illinois, Austin Peay, Tennessee State and SIU Edwardsville -- that will be in the race for the championship.

"The women we're in a situation where we're right there," Crumpecker said. "We're as good as anybody in the conference. There's four or five teams in the conference that have all got a possibility of winning the thing and we're one of them so we've got to show up this weekend and do our thing."

Members of the women's team have put together some of their best performances over the past few weeks and Crumpecker is excited about that positive trend.

The Redhawks have the conference's top marks in three events. Central graduate Mary Dohogne's time of 10 minutes, 56.38 seconds in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Tennessee Relays on April 9 is the best in the OVC as well as Kayla Gutierrez's discus throw of 166-9 and Chante Mosby's high jump of 5-7 from the Memphis Relays on May 2.

Abi Sowash's height of 5-6 in the high jump puts her in second and Ayonna Cartwright has the second-fastest time in the 100-meter in 11.81.

Sarah Hall ranks second in the shot put (48-6 1/4) and third in the hammer throw (194-2) with Gutierrez one spot behind her with throws of 47-3 1/2 in the shot put and 184-0 in the hammer.

Taylor Coffelt has the third-best javelin throw (137-2), Haley Holton has the third-best pole vault (11-6 1/2) and Gloria Westlake has the third best 10,000-meter time (36:5.72).

"Track and field, it's a team sport when you get together at the conference meet, but it's really a bunch of individuals out here doing their thing," Crumpecker said. "The key to having a good successful season is that each individual makes sure they're doing everything they can to get better as individuals and then you put it together. That's just the thing we're always stressing: we constantly have to be improving, trying to improve. If we do that usually the season is successful."