The women’s track team excelled Friday and Saturday at the Iowa State Classic, despite rankings like 82nd out of 130, 63rd out of 89, and 52nd out of 76.

Junior Nicole Flounders earned a place in Eastern’s record books with her performance in the 3K, and solid, consistent numbers were produced by the eight Eastern women who competed in the meet. With the competition of some of the premier track schools in the country, Ohio State, Indiana State, Drake, Iowa State, Missouri State, Kansas State and Wisconsin, it is no wonder a few of the women of Eastern were pushed to personal and school records and that solid results were posted by all.

“Flounders had a real breakthrough performance,” said head women’s coach Mary Wallace.

Flounders said she went into her race looking to set a personal record.

“I went at it real calm and let the other girls take me along,” she said. “Towards the end of the race I started to hear my times and I decided I could have a record – and I needed to do something about it.”

What she did was run the second-fastest indoor 3K ever by an Eastern runner, finishing the race in 10 minutes and 4.90 seconds. The time also marks the fifth-fastest all-time 3K performance in Panther history.

Fellow 3K-runner sophomore Kirsten Bosnak also performed better than her previous times.

“I thought I’d do better,” Bosnak said. She was disappointed in her time despite finishing with a time of 10:46.54, an improvement over her previous efforts in the 10:50’s.

Freshman Violet Nwordu hoped to race faster than she did as well.

“I was happy with the P.R. in the 400,” she said. “I thought I needed to do better in the 200.”

Nwordu’s time in the 200-meter dash, 26.05, was just one tenth of a second off of her season’s best of 25.04, a time which has her ranked 8th at Eastern among women’s indoor runners of all time.

“As a freshman she’s doing really well,” Wallace said.

Nwordu’s goals were to run in the 25-second range in the 200 and around 57 seconds in the 400-meter dash. She said running with athletes who can run similar times helped push her at the meet.

“I have to learn to push at the end of my races and running them against (the bigger schools) helped me push a lot more,” she said.

The meet revealed other high-quality performances for the Eastern women.

Junior Nicolene Galas came in 22nd in pole vault with a vault of 11 feet 2.25inches. She has been consistently vaulting in the 11-foot range the whole season, a height she only cleared consistently towards the end of last year, said Wallace.

Wallace is pleased with sophomore Shannon McDougall’s consistency as well, despite McDougall’s low-ranking finish Saturday. The sophomore placed 52nd out of 76 runners in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 9.41 seconds.

“Her time wasn’t her best, but she ran a strong race,” Wallace said.

The rest of Eastern’s team will join the eight women who participated at the Iowa State Classic this Friday at Lantz Fieldhouse for the Friday Night Special.