FINAL RESULTS

CHARLESTON, Ill. – The Eastern Kentucky University men’s and women’s track and field teams finished second at the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on Saturday at Lantz Field House on the campus of Eastern Illinois. Host EIU swept the men’s and women’s titles for the third consecutive year.

EIU’s women’s team clinched the title with three events remaining as they finished with 177.3 points. EKU was second at 139.5 followed by Southeast Missouri at 106.5. Jacksonville State moved into fourth place with 63.3 points followed by Tennessee State in fifth with 48 points. Austin Peay placed sixth with 38 while Murray State scored 28.3 and Tennessee Tech scored 23 to round out the field.

It is the second consecutive season the Colonel women have finished second behind EIU.

EIU’s men’s team won with 238 total points followed by EKU with 99, SEMO with 94 and TSU with 53.

It is the highest the Colonel men have placed at the indoor championships since they won the event in 2008.

EKU won seven individual OVC titles over the weekend. Senior Kat Pagano, who was named the OVC Co-Female Track Athlete of the Year earlier this week, led the way for the women’s team as she won the women’s 5,000 meters and the women’s 3,000 meters, her fourth and fifth career OVC track and field titles. The reigning OVC women’s cross country champion, Pagano defended her 5,000 meters title from last year on Friday night with a time of 18:09.18 and then won the 3,000 meters on Saturday with a time of 10:29.74.

While Pagano has several OVC titles to her name, the other two EKU female champions were first-timers. Junior Lydia Kosgei – who was named the OVC Co-Female Track Athlete of the Year along with Pagano - won her first career indoor title in the women’s mile as she narrowly defeated Eastern Illinois’ Erika Ramos by less than a second with a time of 5:05.37. Junior Lutisha Bowen, meanwhile, won her first career title in the women’s 60-meter hurdles, edging teammate and last year’s 60-meter hurdles champion sophomore DanHeisha Harding by five tenths of a second with a time of 8.61.

Although she was runner-up to TSU's Martinique Guice, sophomore Jazzmin Jeter turned in an excellent performance in the women's long jump on Saturday as she broke the school record with a leap of 19-2, eclipsing Lacsheia Turner's previous record of 19-0.75 set in 2003.

Sophomore Soufiane Bouchikhi paced the men’s team as he won a pair of OVC titles on Saturday. Bouchikhi, who won three OVC track and field titles last season and the OVC cross country championship in the fall, won the men’s mile with a time of 4:17.83, clipping teammate junior Evans Kiptoo by less than a second, and the men’s 3,000 meters with a time of 8:29.22, beating teammate junior David Mutuse by less than three seconds.

Mutuse, though, earned his own title on Friday night as he won the men’s 5,000 meters with a time of 14:48.18, running away from the field and defeating his nearest competitor – SEMO’s Jason Lumpkin – by 22 seconds.

The Indoor Track and Field National Championships will be held from March 10-12 in College Station, Texas.

The EKU track and field team begins its outdoor season on March 24 at the North Carolina State Raleigh Relays.