McNeese State won the inaugural Louisiana Challenge Cup during its own Cowboy Relays here Saturday.
In cold and a steady rain, the Cowboys and the Cowgirls scored a combined 294 points to win the cup which will become an annual presentation at the track and field meet. Southeastern Louisiana placed second with 272 points and was followed by Northwestern State with 232, Southern 178, Nicholls State 91, UL-Lafayette 82, UL-Monroe 44 and Texas Dallas 38. Nicholls only entered its women’s team while ULL and ULM only had a partial team entered.
The Cowboys led the men’s scoring with 165 points and the women’s with 129.
Keys in McNeese’s winning effort were six first places by the men and four by the women.
Distance runner David Rooney led the men with victories in the 1500 meter and the 3000 meter races while Jacob Domingue won the shot put, Michael Dyer the 800 meter run and Johnathan Koenck the steeplechase. The Cowboys also won the 4x100 meter relay.
The Cowgirls were led by a meet record setting performance by Whitney McKinney while also taking first place medals were Christi McRae in the 100 meters, Alvy Carragher in the steeplechase and DeAnn Washington in the discus.
“It was a good season opening meet for us,” said McNeese coach Brendon Gilroy. “I thought that we had a good all around performance and it was good to see Whitney set that meet record and to see David win two events. I thought that our athletes really competed well.”
Rooney won the 1500 meter run in a 4:05.21 clocking and he had four teammates right behind him as Michael Dyer finished third, Johnathan Koenck was fourth, Jarrett LeBlanc fifth and Ryan Barrow sixth.
In the 3000 meters, Rooney beat Southeastern Louisiana’s Henry Rop who is considered to be one of the top distance runners in the region. Rooney posted an 8:44.02 and teammate Barrow finished third.
Domingue took the shot put with an outdoors best of 53-l0.25, Dyer won the 800 meters in 1:55.94 and Koenck won the steeplechase in 9:36.22.
The men’s 4x100 meter relay team of Andre Salmon, Charles Jackson, Ronald Stine and Torian Llindsey ran a 41.94 for its victory.
For the women, McKinney posted a 56.33 winning effort to snap the meet record of 56.39 that had been set by McNeese’s Bernadette Dawson in 1995.
McRae won the 100 meter dash in 12.03, Carragher won the steeplechase in 12:18.99 and Washington took the discus in 128-0. Carragher’s pace will go down as a meet record since it’s the first time the women have run the steeplechase at the facility.
Second place efforts produced by McNeese athletes came from Amy Guinn with a 10:36.0 in the 3000 meters and a 5:00.76 in the 1500 meters, from Ronald Stine with a 22.22 in the 200 meters, Salmon in the 100 meter dash at 10.79, Ben Chretien with a 201-6 throw in the javelin and from Katarina Caraway in the women’s steeplechase and Jarrett LeBlanc in the men’s steeplechase.
Other athletes in the meet set meet records and posted some NCAA regional qualifying efforts.