In a span of six minutes, the Mississippi State women’s track team tallied 27 points, which helped propel it to its highest team finish at the Southeastern Conference Championships.
The burst started with a 14-point haul in the 1,500 meters, where Rihanwedd Price and Marta Freitas finished second and third, respectively, with times of 4 minutes, 18.32 seconds and 4:19.38.
Then, Erica Bougard ran 13.02 in the 100 hurdles for third and Ste-yce McNeil took seventh. Shayla Lucket then ran a 47.24 in the open 400 to take fourth.
MSU coach Steve Dudley said the performance by Price and Freitas set the tone for that stretch and helped energize their teammates.
“That stretch, it happened so quickly because all of the events run together,” Dudley said. “But that’s what put us in position to finish where we did. That put us in single digits, where we’ve never finished before.”
Arkansas won the women’s meet with 127.5 points, while Texas A&M took second (104 points). Arkansas’ win can largely be credited to its performance in the distance events. The wins can be attributed largely to one runner: Dominique Scott, a junior, who won the 1,500 and 5,000, edging Price and Freitas in the former.
Dudley said his team is built more for nationals than a conference meet, where there are fewer teams.
It showed in the 800, where Freitas took seventh and Price finished ninth.
“Meets like this, it spreads us out because we’re having to double up,” said Dudley, whose team finished eighth. “We’re a bit more tired toward the end of the meet.”
Still, Dudley is keen to see the team’s performance carry over to NCAA regionals. He said many of the times and distances will help the team’s national ranking.
“We finished eighth, and there will probably be some of us who leave disappointed tonight,” Dudley said. “Monday, the team rankings will come out and we’ll probably be ranked 12 or 13th in the country after finishing eighth here. Erica, now having top heptathlon ranking, will help team ranking go up. Rhian, Marta, so many people who had huge meets and moved up the national rankings.”
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