Sophomore middle-distance runner Erin O’Grady ran a personal best in the mile Saturday at the Wabash Open in Crawfordsville, Ind.

Grady’s time of 5 minutes, 8.68 seconds in the mile was eighth fastest in school history and helped her to be named Competitor of the Meet for the women’s team for the event.

“It feels good to be named Competitor of the Meet,” O’Grady said. “I’m coming off of a knee injury and now I can finally start doing track workouts and not just run outside.”

O’Grady said she was expecting a big race after talking to her coach.

“My goal was to break 5:10,” O’Grady said. “Usually I don’t care about times; I just try to run as fast as possible, but I knew the competition was not going to be that strong.”

Sophomore pole vaulter Anci Borozan was named Co-Performer of the Meet for her seventh place finish in pole vault.

“The way they had it set up she did not know when she was going, so she actually looked better in practice before than she did in the meet,” Eastern head track coach Tom Akers said.

Freshman thrower Dominique Turner was named the other co-performer for a personal best in shot put with a mark of 38 feet, 10.50 inches.

For the men’s team, freshman distance runner Derek Ericson won Competitor of the Week for his time of 9:07.45 in the 3,000-meter run.

Senior sprinter Brenton Emanuel was named Performer of the Meet for running the 200-meter dash in less than 23 seconds for the first time this season.

Winston named OVC Field Athlete of the Week

Sophomore jumper Ian Winston was named the Ohio Valley Conference Field Athlete of the Week for the week of Feb. 12 for his performance at the Wabash Open.

Winston won the high jump with a mark of 6-4 and placed second in the triple jump with a mark of 44-4 3/4.

This comes one week after senior jumper Obe Eruteya was named the Ohio Valley Conference Field Athlete of the Week for the week of Feb. 5 and third time this season.

Eruteya was chosen for his high jump mark of 6-8 3/4 at the Indiana Relays on Feb.1-2, which was good enough for third place at the event and is the high mark in the OVC this season.

In addition, Eruteya was chosen as the Eastern Male Student Athlete of the Month for his outstanding performance in jumping events and in the classroom this season.

Panthers to compete at Iowa State

Eastern men’s and women’s indoor track teams will compete at the Iowa State Classic this Saturday in Ames, Iowa.

Akers said he expects to send between 30-35 athletes to the meet. He said the meet should have more than 100 teams competing.

“This is one of the top indoor meets in the country,” Akers said. “We will have some really great competition, and there will be some very talented athletes.”

Akers said he expects to continue to see some improvement in his teams and that it is common for athletes to set personal bests and have breakthrough performances at this meet.

“It is a 300-meter track, which is bigger and allows our athletes to run faster,” Akers said.

Dan Cusack can be reached at 581-7944 or at dscusack@eiu.edu.

Jaimee Phegley throws during track practice earlier in the year. The next track competition will be Feb. 11 at Iowa State. (John Bailey/The Daily Eastern News)

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