MURFREESBORO - Austin Peay State University women's track
and field team had another noteworthy showing, Saturday, at Middle Tennessee's
Christmas Invitational.
Head coach Doug Molnar was impressed at his team's efforts and
all around performance in a meet that included a pair of competitive Sun Belt
teams (Middle Tennessee and Western Kentucky), along with Ohio Valley
Conference member Tennessee State.
"I can see the confidence growing from week one to week two,"
Molnar said. "This is a group that is going to continue to grow."
In the field events, the Lady Govs were spurred by April Holman's third-place high jump finish. For the second consecutive week, Holman
set a personal best, this time at 5'4. Also freshman Caitlin Tassell won the
pole vault with a 9' height.
Candace Johnson showed vigor in the distance races,
finishing eighth ahead of Chiamaka Obi, in the 400-meter run and fourth in the
200-meter dash. Latoya Monger, meanwhile, finished third in the 55-meter
hurdles.
Austin Peay finished ahead of MTSU and WKU in the 4x400-meter
relay with a 4:01.71 time, which was almost a full second faster than the
Saluki Fast Start finish.
"Latoya Monger ran one of her more aggressive races in the
hurdles," Molnar said. "April is continuing to improve each meet, with her
second personal best in two meets. Our mile relay team did a really good job
again as well."
The test for Molnar and the Austin Peay team will be
maintaining this momentum over the traditional Christmas break. This season
marked the first time since December 2007 the Lady Govs have had a meet prior
to the Spring semester's start.
With the strong showings in Carbondale, Ill. and in
Murfreesboro, Molnar has placed an emphasis on not sliding back during the
break.
"We had a team meeting afterwards," Molnar said. "We're off
to a great start, probably the best we've had in the past five or six years. We
told them, in order to make that next step and go to the next level as a team,
what we do over the next three weeks is going to be key."
Austin Peay returns to action, Jan. 8, at the Ed Temple
Classic, hosted by Tennessee State in Nashville.
-AP-