Sophomore hurdler Shannon McDougal said the bus ride home was quiet this weekend. The women’s team, who entered Tennessee Friday looking for a top three spot at the indoor Ohio Valley Conference championships, left Saturday night with a disappointing fifth place finish out of ten teams.

“We’re primarily freshman and sophomores,” said head coach Tom Akers. “And in other places we’re running up against some tough competition.”

Southeast Missouri took first with 137 points, followed by Tennessee State at 123, Eastern Kentucky with 85, and Samford with 77.

Even though the Panthers’ finish isn’t what the team wanted, Akers focuses on the individual performances and looks ahead.

“Our performances were some of the best of the year,” he said. “We were just eleven points out of third.”

Akers pointed out that the majority of first place finishers from the top three teams were seniors and juniors and that the next year or two the OVC will see “things open up”. He predicts changes in the rankings.

The highest point scorer for Eastern was freshman jumper Jenna Uhe. She placed second in the triple jump and third in the long jump.

Uhe jumped a season’s best in both events, 39 feet, 3 and 3/4 inches and 18 feet 9 and 1/4 inches respectively.

Other top point scorers included junior Nicole Flounders, who earned fourth place in the mile and fifth in the 3K, and junior Nicolene Galas, who vaulted to third place in her competition.

The women, despite placing well in this competition were capable of achieving better results and had produced better times and heights earlier in the season.

Senior Angie Simone, who placed eleventh in the 5K said “I don’t think we’re a fifth place team in the conference.”

Her sentiments were echoed by her teammates Amy LeJeune and Flounders who agreed that the ranking does not show the teams ability. LeJeune finished in ninth place in the 800-meter run.

LeJeune and Simone both missed scoring for their teams by just a few seconds, as the top eight finishers in events score points for their respective team.

Despite some disappointing finishes by Eastern athletes some girls managed to pull out personal records.

Sophomore Shannon McDougall missed the 60 meter-hurdle finals by one place, but ran a P.R. time of 8.77 seconds.

“I thought we had a lot of really good individual performances, but overall it didn’t really work out in our favor,” said freshman jumper Vicki Dzura, who, despite jumping season best distances in her high and triple jump, did not crack into the top three in either event.

Freshman distance runner Jessica Blondell earned two personal records as well. Her eighth place time of 10:31.71 in the 3K and seventh place, with a 5:13.47 mile time were not fast enough to earn her team much needed points.

Blondell, however, was part of the point scoring second place Distance Medley Relay team. The team’s finishing time of 12.17.59 was close to the school record.

Track is a two-season sport and as the winter comes to a close the team is optimistic about their spring.

“It was no one in particular’s fault,” Blondell said. “We just didn’t pull together as a whole like we should have. Hopefully this will be a push for outdoor season.”