BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Junior Ashton Rainey (silver) and sophomore Kyndall Drones (bronze) earned Lamar University's first two medals Wednesday at the Southland Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships held at the Birmingham Complex. The men's team is in eighth place with 12 points, while the women are in fourth with 29 points and trail third-place Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (30) by one and second-place East Texas A&M (34) by five. LU finished the first day with 12 top-10 finishes.
 
Stephen F. Austin currently leads the competition on both the men's (64) and women's (62) sides after the first day.
 
Rainey took part in the women's 5,000 meters and clocked in a second-place time of 16:34.69. She never ran outside the top three at any point during the race and was leading after the 2,000m mark before finishing nearly four seconds behind Valentine Jemutai of Stephen F. Austin.
 
Kyndall Drones took home third in the women's weight throw after her second of six tosses went for 17.09m (56-1). On the men's circuit, Alex Williams III placed fifth with his launch of 17.96m (58-11.25).
 
In addition, the Cardinals had seven athletes advance to the finals of their respective events. John Sanderson (8.08) and Krystan Bright (8.55) each finished fourth in their 60m hurdle prelims. Sanderson came within a hundredth of a second of winning his heat against Cheyne West (ETAMU).
 
Luke Parker set a new personal best in the men's 800m prelims (1:51.70) to take second while Jonathan Rivera crossed the line in the mile seventh place with a time of 4:11.70. The Cardinals will also have three finalists for the 400m dash in Cameron Chin (3rd; 47.50), Ethan Ellis (7th; 48.20) and Kayla Smith (4th; 55.58).
 
Eloise Duboscq competed in the women's pentathlon and started strong with three top-four finishes in the high jump (1st; 1.64m/5-04.50), 60m-hurdles (4th; 8.93) and the shot put (3rd; 12.02m/39-05.25). She would finish fifth overall with a new personal best of 3,620 points, which is now the fifth-highest total in program history. Ke'Asia Hall came within an inch (5.71m/18-08.75) of medaling in the women's long jump.
 
The second and final day of the SLC Indoor meet will commence Thursday at 9:40 a.m.
 

#PeckEmCards