The Eastern men’s track and field team took first place at this weekend’s Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championship meet, racking up a total of 238 total points in the process.

The Panther men owned the day; crushing the other OVC opponents, with second place Eastern Kentucky putting up 99 total points. Southeast Missouri took third, while Tennessee State took fourth.

The women’s team also put up big points, scoring a total of 177.3 for the meet. The second place team was again Eastern Kentucky with 139.5, followed by Southeast Missouri and Jacksonville State.

Red-shirt junior Zye Boey was named Male Athlete of the Championships, after taking home the first place medals in both the 60-meter and 200-meter dash. Boey will now move on to compete in the NCAA Indoor Championships in March.

Boey said it was great that so many people came out to support the Panthers at Lantz Fieldhouse. Boey said the support of the fanbase, as well as support from other coaches and people of the athletic department, really help out the team.

Head track and field coach Tom Akers was named OVC Coach of the Year for his work with both the Panther men and women’s programs.

Akers has been a coach at Eastern for 16 seasons. Receiving the award this year marks the 16th time Akers has won the award.

The women’s distance medley relay team of sophomore Paige Biehler, junior Emily Quinones, red-shirt junior Megan Gingerich and sophomore Erika Ramos broke an OVC record with the time of 12:06.77. The women took first place in the event.

Erika Ramos, along with taking home the first place medal in the distance medley relay, also took home two second-place medals in the women’s 800-meter run and the one-mile run.

Ramos ran a 2:13.89 in the 800-meter finals, finishing behind teammate Megan Gingerich. In the mile run, Ramos finished with a time of 5:06.33, falling short of Lydia Kosgei of Eastern Kentucky, who won the race with a time of 5:05.37.

“Looking at the seedings, I was expecting to do well, if not, I would have been disappointed,” Ramos said.

Ramos said a key to victory for the women’s team was the number of surprise top finishes, which gave the team the points it needed to pull ahead in the standings.

“We had a lot of surprise top three finishes. Going two-three-four in the 5K, and finishing second and third in the weight throw gave us a lot of points. We were ready to fight,” Ramos said.

The Panthers will be ready to fight again next week at the NCAA Last Chance meet on March 5.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-7944 or dcrenzetti@eiu.edu

From left to right: Reid Basting, Chad Aubin and Wes Sheldon cross the finish line of the 800-meter run final Saturday in the fieldhouse of Lantz Arena. Aubin took first place, with Basting and Sheldon coming in second and third, respectively. (Kimberly F

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