BATON ROUGE - Sophomore Aquellah El-Amin and freshman Lacey Sanchez tied the school record in the indoor pole vault and sophomore Michael Rheams came in second place with a personal best mark in the triple jump, one of 25 established by Lion and Lady Lion athletes, as the Southeastern Louisiana University men's and women's track and field teams concluded a successful season opening meet at the LSU Combined Events and Purple Tiger Invitational on Friday.
"Overall, I'm very pleased with this meet," head coach Sean Brady said. "Our jumpers were great across the board and our weight throwers did pretty good. We still have some things to work on, but this is where we expected to be right now. This was a great meet for our freshmen to come in, establish their personal marks and see where they can go from here. We saw plenty of positives today and now everyone knows what they have to work on and what we are going to be pushing toward from here on out."
With eight student-athletes competing in their first indoor events, the Lady Lions established personal best marks in 11 different events on Friday. However, it was El-Amin and Sanchez leading a charge against a school record in the season opener. The pair of Lady Lion pole vaulters both managed to clear 11 ft. 5.75 in. (3.50 m), tying the school indoor mark set by Erica Cronin in 2006 and tied by El-Amin last season.
El-Amin and Sanchez made attempts at setting a new school record, but could not clear 11 ft. 11.75 in. (3.65 m) en route to sixth and eighth place finishes, respectively.
On the men's side, Rheams turned heads in the triple jump, setting a personal best mark of 49 ft. 2.25 in. (14.99 m) and claim second place. Heading up one of Southeastern's deepest groups, Rheams was one of three Lions in the top ten of the event.
Redshirt freshman Robert Lewis jumped 46 ft. 10.75 in. (14.29 m), setting a personal best in his indoor debut to take sixth in the triple jump and junior Kernell Jupiter joined him in the top ten with an eighth place finish of 45 ft. 5.25 in. (13.85 m).
A strong performance from Southeastern's weight throwers also gave the Lions a boost. Junior Fiasal Muhammed led the way in his Lion debut after transferring from Kingsbourough Community College, throwing 56 ft. 11.5 in. (17.36 m).
Juniors Chris Labat and Kyle Francis also had impressive marks in the weight throw, posting personal records in the event. Labat's toss of 52 ft. 7.50 in. (16.04 m) earned him ninth place while Francis claimed 11th with a career best mark of 50 ft. 6.25 in. (15.40 m).
The Southeastern men's side posted 13 personal best marks from 13 different athletes, giving Southeastern a grand total of 24 personal best marks established in the first meet of the indoor season.
The Lions and Lady Lions will return to action on Saturday Jan. 31 when they head to Houston, Texas for the University of Houston Indoor Invitational.