Double event winners Charles Jackson and Mariah Georgetown led McNeese State in its home indoor track and field meet debut of the season here Friday.
No team totals were kept in the meet but the Cowboys and Cowgirls totaled 15 first place efforts, six by the Cowboys and nine by the Cowgirls. Joining McNeese for the meet were teams from Tiffen (Ohio) University, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Incarnate Word. Jackson, a senior, won the 55 meter dash and the 200 meter dash and also ran the lead leg on the winning men's 4x400 meter relay team. He posted a 6.44 clocking in the 55 meters and a 22.79 mark in the 200 meters. He was joined by Cody Skarupa, Jim Marcantel and Torian Lindsey on the winning relay team which produced a 3:30.84 clocking. Georgetown, a rookie, won the women's 55 meter high hurdles in 8.23 and the long jump at 18-4.5 and she also ran the anchor leg on the winning 4x400 relay which ran a 4:06.86. ON that team she was joined by Jasmine Cornelius and Desarae Couthren. Other first place efforts for the Cowboys were posted by Parminder Singh with a 6-8 high jump, by Skarupa with a 1:58.84 effort in the 800 meters and by Thomas Canchola with a 53-5.75 effort in the shot put. Also posting first place marks for the Cowgirls were Jacqueline Berry with a 37-7.25 triple jump, Ashleigh Wells with a 26.44 time in the 200 meters, Paige Lynch with a 7.31 in the 55 meter dash, Alyssa Cotton with a 10-6 pole vault, Ashlee Smith with a 51-3.75 effort in the weight thow and DeAnn Washington with a 43-9 in the shot put. "It was a good meet for us," said McNeese coach Brendon Gilroy. "This was a tune up to get the rust off after the Christmas holidays. I thought that a lot of kids put forth a very good effort. "We had some good individual performances. That high jump by Sunny (Singh) was one of the better ones in this arena (complex record is 7-2). This is definitely something to build on." One of the featured races of the day was the men's 3000 meter with McNeese's Joshua Sawe battling Southland Conference cross country champion Patrick Kinely of A&M-Corpus. Kinely won the race but only by a second over Sawe. Kinely ran 8:37.14 and Sawe 8:38.93.