Jon Dunning
Staff Writer
The Murray State track and field team participated in their last regular season indoor meet at the Bulldog Open Friday, Feb. 14, and Saturday, Feb. 15, in Birmingham, Alabama.
The event opened Friday with the 200m, with senior Norma Abdur-Rafia placing second in the contest with a time of 24.28. Redshirt sophomore Jumyia Denning took seventh in the event with 24.95 and freshman Kenia Seals finished ninth with 25.18.
After placing first in the high jump competition last week at the Marshall Invitational, freshman Meghan Fletcher took first place for Murray State in the high jump with a 1.70m jump. The Racers overall delivered a strong performance in the high jump, as redshirt junior Jessikha Ribeiro placed third and sophomore Ashlyn Oren took fifth, each jumping 1.65m.
Saturday saw numerous Racer athletes earn personal-best records throughout the course of the day. To Murray State Head Coach Adam Kiesler, this level of performance is what he wants to see out of his team as they get ready for the OVC Indoor Championship.
“We’ll get on the bus in about eight days, so we are kind of looking for those types of things to happen,” Kiesler said, “We’re encouraging things to happen. Usually we hope around this time of year that would be the case when we go to meets, so it was a good sign for those kids that had PRs going forward.”
Seals set a personal best record in the 60m, placing fifth with a time of 7.52.
Senior Hilary McAdam took second in the 800m with 2:15.18, while Amirr Evans placed sixth with 2:18.70. Freshman LaMiah Campbell set a new personal-best record in the event, running 2:19.40 to place eighth.
Freshman Emma Graf also earned a personal-best record during the mile, completing the event in 5:18.01 to finish fifth.
Sophomore Dani Wright, freshman Kristin Dent and sophomore Morgan Vosler each set personal-best records in the 3000m. Wright placed fourth with 10:40.94, Dent took sixth with 10:53.15 and Vosler ran 10:57.70 to finish eighth.
Hagans set a personal-best distance in the long jump and also set the record for the third best jump in the OVC this season with 5.74m.
In pole vault, sophomore Brooke Misukonis took sixth with 3.50m while freshman Jenna Pauly set a personal-best record, finishing seventh with 3.50m.
In the 60m hurdles finals, sophomore Dontavia Howard took sixth with 9.44.
The 4x400m relay team comprised of senior D’Myia Thornton, Hagans, McAdam and Campbell placed second with 3:50.05.
While Kiesler is mostly impressed with the Racers’ performance at the Bulldog Open, he sees even more room for growth from his team.
“Track and field in general, there’s some ups and downs sometimes, so we kind of experienced some of those,” Kielser said. “We hope to learn from those types of things, whether that be a few do’s and don’ts in training in the next week or so in terms of rest…I think overall it was a good stepping stone towards conference.”
As the team gets ready for the OVC Indoor Championships, Kiesler knows that the team feels capable of competing at the event but also knows it will be one of the tougher challenges the team has faced this season.
“We are confident, but at the same time, we know that the OVC, especially over the last like two to four years, has gotten a lot better,” Kielser said. “We’re confident but we also have respect for our opponents in terms of what they are going to bring to the table in the competition, so we kind of have to mind our business in terms of what we think we can do. You know, go out and try and make as many finals as we possibly can and then at the end of the two-day competition, see what happens.”
The Murray State track and field team will compete next at the OVC Indoor Championships on Wednesday, Feb. 26, and Thursday, Feb. 27, at the Birmingham CrossPlex in Birmingham, Alabama.
