March 3, 2008

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana - The 2008 Southwestern Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships concluded today with conference institutions competing in the finals in the field events, sprints, distance runs and a relay. When it was all said and done the Tigers finished in second place in the overall competition.

Afolabi Ayanwale won the long jump with a distance of 14.55 m. Ayanwale also won the triple jump (14.55). Lavarus Giles won the 60-m dash with a time of 6.81 sec. Kevin Itima placed second in the 800-m run with a mark of 1:56.11. Ronnel Jones won the shot put with a throw of 14.88 m. In the 200-m dash two Tigers broke SWAC records. Derrick Ray finished second with a time of 22.20 and Justin Vance finished third with a time of 22.11. The previous SWAC mark was held by Albert Turner (22.29 sec).

In the final event of the day, the 4x400 meter relay, Jackson State, Prairie View and Southern were each separated by less than a half-of-an-second. However, JSU won the event with a time of 3:17.19; Prairie View was second with a time of 3:17.42 and Southern was third with a time of 3:17.47.

In the men's overall competition, Prairie View A&M was first with 143 points, Jackson State was second with 112 points and Southern was third with 83.5 points.