Eastern track and field will head up to the University of Illinois this weekend for its fifth meet of the outdoor season. 

The Illinois Twilight meet will mark the mid-point of the outdoor season for the team and gets them back into another streak of competitions on the road. This weekend’s meet will also mark the final competition the team will attend in the state of Illinois for the rest of the season.

The team will look to keep up the caliber of performance they have maintained the past two meets. That includes four top finishes in events last week at the Western Kentucky Relays and seven first place finishes at the EIU Big Blue Classic two weeks ago.

The largest highlight for the track team though came from a pair of triple jumpers that earned the men’s and women’s Ohio Valley Conference Field Athletes of the Week. Senior jumper Chrisford Stevens won the men’s award for his first-place finish in the triple jump, with a distance of 50’7.50,” which is ranked as sixth all time for Eastern in the event. 

On the other side, redshirt senior Brion Portis won the women’s award for her first place in the triple jump at Western Kentucky.

That was Portis’ third straight top finish in the triple jump this outdoor season. The jump also moved her to the top spot in the OVC for the event and ranks 25th in the NCAA in the event. 

Overall, this was the third Eastern track and field athlete to win the award so far in the outdoor season, with graduate student Ryan Pearce winning it last week for his multiple top three finishes and first in the discus. 

Now that is getting into the meat of the outdoor season, the members of the track and field team have confidence and are ready to finish out the season strong and healthy.

“The team is feeling very confident as a whole. We also have a few key contributors from the distance crew that are now healthy, after being injured in the indoor season,” redshirt Riley McInerney said. 

Eastern will look to keep up its recent success in field events and to continue the streak of OVC Athlete of the week winners as well.

Competition will commence Saturday, April 14th at 3 p.m. at the University of Illinois. Next week Eastern track and field will travel to Indiana to compete in the Indiana State Pacesetter meet. 

Alex Hartman can be reached at 581-2812 or aihartman@eiu.edu