Victories in four distance races by Jarrett LeBlanc, Alex Bruce-Littlewood, Amy Talbot and Fionnuala Ross highlighted McNeese State's performance in its season opening indoor track meet on campus Friday.
The Cowboys and Cowgirls totaled 10 first places in the McNeese Indoor I meet at the Ralph O. Ward Rec-Complex that is a two day event with high schools taking over on Saturday.
LeBlanc won the men's mile run with a clocking of 4:10 while Bruce-Littlewood took the 800 meters in 1:56.49, Talbot won the women's mile in 5:09.19 and Ross won the women's 3000 meters in 10:25.28.
Also for the Cowboys, champions were Jared Crafton with a 48-1.25 toss in the weight throw, Xavier Stevens with a 49-1 in the triple jump and Cody Skarupa with a 51.17 clocking in the 400 meters.
For the Cowgirls, Ashlee Smith won the weight throw at 54-0, Jacqueline Berry had a 7.44 effort in the 55 meter dash and Mariah Georgetown won the 55 hurdles in 8.25.
“I thought that we had a good start,” said head coach Brendon Gilroy. “Up top (the indoor oval track upstairs at the rec-complex) we really had some good first meet performances.”
LeBlanc, a two event champion at last year's Southland Conference outdoor championship meet, was after the meet's mile run record of 4:07.9 that was set by teammate David Rooney last year.
It was his first time to run the mile since last year and he clipped three seconds off his 2010 clocking.
“It's still early in the year but it's a very good sign (his performance),” he said. “I feel that my endurance is a lot better this year. I've been running 85 to 95 miles each week and that's more than the 65 to 75 that I was running at this time last year. It's definitely a good start.”
LeBlanc was paced by Bruce-Littlewood in the mile run, the latter falling out after several laps. Bruce-Littlewood, who was the Cowboys lead runner during the recent cross country season, went on to win the 800 meter run, one of his better events.
Second place efforts for McNeese in the meet went to Thomas Canchola in the weight (46-8), Berry in the women's triple jump (38-8.75) and 200 meters (26.77), Ashleigh Wells in the women's 400 meters (59.10), Joshua Sawe in the men's 800 meters (1:57.03), Johnathan Koenck in the men's mile run (4:13.35), the women's 4x400 meter relay team of Desarae Couthren, Jasmine Cornelius, Simone Johnson and Wells (4:04.55) and the men's 4x400 meter relay team of Robert Graham, Torian Lindsey, Tevon Remo and Morgan Wells (3:23.48).