Published: May 12, 2008 12:13 am            

Champions again

Sam Houston State sprinter Tiffany Singleton knelt down around the 20-yard line at Bowers Stadiums on Sunday following the women’s 400-meter dash final at the Southland Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

She was trying to hold back the tears and emotion, but to no avail. The feeling inside her was too overwhelming. After countless runner-up finishes in the 400 and 4-by400 relay the last three years, the senior was finally a champion.

Singleton cruised to a first-place finish in the 400 to help the Sam Houston women’s track and field team win their third Southland Conference team outdoor title in four years Sunday afternoon.

“It feels so good. It feels great,” said Singleton, who won the 400 with a time of 53.86 seconds. “My coach made a comment during our team meeting that I was the ‘Super Queen’ because I was always runner-up. But it feels so good to finally win. I’m just so happy and blessed.”

Singleton later teamed with Brittany Henson, Monika May and Desiree Taylor to put the exclamation point on the team title with a gold-medal performance in the 4-by-400 relay to close the meet. The Bearkat quartet blew away the competition with a time of 3:44.28, two seconds faster than second-place Lamar.

Sam Houston finished with 175.5 points, well ahead of Texas State (148.5) and Stephen F. Austin State (124.83).

The Bobcats had a comfortable lead over the Bearkats (112.5 to 76.5) heading into the running finals. But just as soon as the first gun fired, signaling the start of the 4-by-100 relay, Tianna Lee, Jessica Fisher, Dess Meek and Regina Offord helped cut into the lead with a first-place finish in a time of 45.61 seconds.

Lee (13.79 seconds), Jordan Heggie (14.05) and Tywanisha Spiller (14.17) closed the gap to 115.5-99.5 after finishing third, fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 100-meter hurdles. Singleton then won the 400, while Taylor placed fifth to earn four more points.

After Fisher took the bronze and Offord placed fifth in the 100-meter dash, the Bearkats took the lead for the first time Sunday and eventually pulled away to win the school’s fifth SLC track and field title (three outdoor and two indoor).

“We knew that we were going to score our big points on the track. That’s where we have done it every year we have won one,” SHSU coach Dave Self said. “We told the girls that if you just go out and do what you are able to do, we are going to win another championship. They came out and did it and did it on their own track.”

Other top finishers for the Bearkats on Sunday included Lee (1:01.2), Dakota Stewart (1:01.88) and Henson (1:03.12), who finished 1-2-3 in the 400-meter hurdles. Fisher (23.74) and Offord (24.25) placed second and fifth in the 200-meter dash, while Whitney Rister (17:57.29) and Allison Ferries (18:00.93) took fifth and seventh in the 1,500-meter run.

Fisher, the 2007 SLC 100 and 200 champion, didn’t have the type of meet she was hoping for. But despite battling through the spring with an injury, she earned three medals Sunday, which earned 16.5 points.

“I’m proud of my team and I’m proud of myself,” Fisher said. “I have a hip-flexor strain and it’s serious. Sometimes it hurts to just walk. So just for me to come out here and finish was a great accomplishment. I’m just thankful that I have such great teammates that when I can’t do something they have the heart to do it.”

It wasn’t just the running events that helped the team claim the championship Sunday. Senior Mallory Adams capped her Bearkat career with a third-place finish in the discus earlier in the afternoon. She won her first-medal at SHSU on her first attempt with a throw of 43.67 meters.

Junior Kim Olison placed seventh in the discus to pick up two points with a toss of 40.01. Senior Kendall Bass, who hadn’t thrown the discus since her freshman year, placed eighth to earn another point (she also won the shot put on Saturday).

Karen Klintoe also placed third in the pole vault with a height of 3.70 meters to put the Bearkats in striking distance heading into the running finals.

“It was pretty awesome,” Adams said about the points earned in the field events Sunday. “It was nice to have Kendall come up and get us a point. Our points that we scored today are very valuable to helping us win. Everybody who competed at one o’clock today came through.”

Everybody did, and that’s why the Bearkats are once again the Southland Conference Outdoor Track and Field champions.

        

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