LAFAYETTE, La. - The Lady Jags got on the board, Saturday at the Sun Belt Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships. By the end of Day-2, the women's team found itself in fourth place with 23.5 points after seven events. North Texas leads the competition with 67.5 with Western Kentucky in second.
Florence Edi finished second in the heptathlon and Latoria English placed fourth in the grueling two day, seven-discipline event. Edi was the defending champion and has an NCAA Championship provisional qualifying mark in the heptathlon.
Edi qualified for tomorrow's finals in the 100m hurdles with the sixth-best time in the preliminary round (14.97). The senior will also compete in the javelin.
Junior Ajoke Odumosu leads the preliminary qualifiers in the 400m and 400m hurdles as she attempts to recapture the titles she won as a freshman in 2004. She improved her conference-best and NCAA Regional qualifying mark in the 400m to 53.08.
Also qualifying in two events for the Lady Jags was transfer sophomore Clarisse Moh. The French national made to Sunday's finals with the third fastest time in the 400m at 55.68. She is the fastest qualifier in the 800m at 2:15.68. Moh qualified for the Regional Championships in both events three weeks ago at Auburn.
Also moving on to 800m finals tomorrow are sophomores Lillian Ajok (second - 2:16.70), Cassandra Perkins (eighth - 2:19.88) and freshman Jessica Miller (seventh - 2:18.02). She just missed qualifying in the 400m hurdles, finishing ninth in the prelims with a time of 1:06.85.
The women failed to qualify in the 100m and 200m, but will be strong in the several Sunday finals and have the fastest 4x400m relay, the day's last event, if it comes down to the wire as expected.
After Vincent Rono's school-record setting performance in the 10,000m on Friday, the men's team, leading after the first day of competition, got big points from an unexpected place. With senior Ezra Bialy (sixth in 2005) sitting out of the long jump to concentrate on Sunday's triple jump (first in 2005), sophomore Michael Bagby set a new personal best to place second in the event. Bagby's 7.26m (23' 10") betters his personal record (6.54m/21' 5.25") coming into the 2006 season by more than two feet. During the indoor season, the former Davidson HS (Mobile, Ala.) football standout had a leap of 6.97m (22' 10.5") at the Middle Tennessee Invitational in January.
South Alabama's men's team will have to look forward to the final day of the championships for more points as they fell to fifth in team scoring with 26 points. Troy (45) leads Western Kentucky by nine points after six events.
The men's 800m will field three Jaguars on Sunday as Stephen Larubi (second - 1:53.79), Jeremiah Carter (fifth - 1:53.25), and Anthony Murphy (sixth - 1:53.61) all advanced.
Christophe DuMee will be a factor in two races tomorrow. The sophomore qualfied in both hurdle disciplines, finishing fourth-best (14.58) in the 110 high hurdles and sixth (54.87 - p.r.) in the 400m intermediate hurdles.
The men failed to qualify in the 100m, 200m, and 400m, but will have multiple participants in the pole vault, 800m, 1500m, and 5000m,
The final day of competition will begin with the men's hammer throw at 10 a.m. (CT). The first running event will be the 4x100m relay at 6 p.m.
Outdoor Track and Field Schedule
May 12-14 - Sun Belt Conference Championships
May 26-27 - NCAA Regional
June 6-10 - NCAA Championships
