Greenville Sweeps First Annual SLIAC Track & Field Invitational
ST. LOUIS – Greenville College captured both the men’s and women’s titles at the first annual St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC) Track and Field Invitational on Saturday. The Invitational, held in conjunction with the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville Twilight, was scored independently of the main meet.
Behind wins in 10 events, the Panther men amassed 232 points besting runner-up Principia College (94 points) which took home five titles. Webster University won a single event as part of its third-place finish with 60 points. Fontbonne University won the other two events and finished fourth with 37 points. Westminster College (12 points) and Eureka College (6 points) also competed.
On the women’s side, Greenville scored 102 points behind eight event wins. Webster won three events in support of its runner-up finish with 82 points. Principia (24 points) and Fontbonne (20 points) each won one event to finish third and fourth, respectively. Westminster (10 points) and Eureka (7 points) also competed.
Principia’s Grant Greishaber, one of three dual winners, scored 34 points with victories in the discus (129-9) and hammer (134-9) to go along with a runner-up finish in the shot put (40-2.25) and a third-place finish in the javelin (140-5). Teammate Drew Clark and Greenville’s Mark Mitchell also took home a pair of individual titles. Clark won the 800 and 1500-meter runs in times of 1:58.2 and 3:57.2. Mitchell’s titles came in the 100- and 200-meter dashes with times of 11.01 seconds and 22.6 seconds.
Webster’s LaKecia Veal was the lone dual winner on the women’s side with winning times of 13.82 seconds in the 100-meter dash and 28.76 seconds in the 200-meter dash. She also finished second in the triple jump (33-9.5).
The meet was scored on a 10-8-6-4-2-1 basis, no school could score more than three competitors in any event and events were scored regardless of the number of SLIAC participants.
This marked the first of at least three years that the SLIAC will sponsor a Men's and Women's Outdoor Track and Field Invitational, which will be used as an evaluation tool by Conference administrators to determine the viability of adding track and field as a Championship sport in the SLIAC. Following the 2012 Invitational, administrators will re-evaluate the status of track and field at the Conference level and will decide to add a full-fledged Championship in the sport, continue it as an Invitational for another set period of time, or drop sponsorship of the sport at the Conference level (not at the institution level).
This year, teams and student-athletes competed for the distinction as the SLIAC Track and Field Invitational Champion and individual event honors. Beginning in 2011, the Conference will award a Track Performer of the Week and Field Performer of the Week for both men and women; student-athletes will be eligible for the Conference's Spring All-Academic Team, and track and field will have a permanent presence on the SLIAC web site.
