Clarksville, TN – The Austin Peay State University (APSU) track and field team has one final tune-up ahead of the 2020 Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championships when the Govs compete at this weekend’s Bulldog Open, hosted by Samford in Birmingham, Alabama.
A huge meet nestled late in the season, the Bulldog Open will welcome numerous teams from around the south, including a host of OVC schools, to the Birmingham Crossplex.
In addition to the Govs, the league will be represented by Murray State and Tennessee Tech, with student-athletes from Georgia Southern, Georgia State, Jacksonville, Mercer, Nicholls, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Southeastern Louisiana, Troy and ULM among those also in attendance.
“It’s our final meet before OVC,” said Austin Peay State University head coach Valerie Brown. “We’re always striving to be better than we’ve been before and this is just another chance for our young ladies to get some great competition in ahead of our championship meet.”
This week on What Events Will Kenisha Phillips Dominate?, the freshman is in the Friday night 200m dash and back again Saturday for the 60m event; she leads the OVC in the former and is second in the latter and will square off against her most direct competitors—Tennessee Tech’s Lisa Wickham in the 60m and Ceirra Tate in the 200m—in a preview of the league finals.
Elsewhere on the track, Sabrina Richman looks to reclaim her rightful spot atop the league 400m standings with a strong run in a stacked 55-runner field. Much is also expected of Mikaela Smith (800m), Lennex Walker (60m hurdles) and Kyra Wilder (60m dash) as they look to fine-tune their specialties ahead of the championships.
For the Govs to truly challenge for a league title, the throws will be a vital component and sophomores Jackie Verseman and Kori McDaniel are a huge part of that. In a large field, both are in the top flight of both the weight throw and shot put; a strong showing against a challenging field could turn their desire for points at the conference meet into a shot at the podium, particularly in the shot put.
League triple jump leader Maya Perry-Grimes is the prohibitive favorite in the event this week and among the contenders in the long jump; she’ll look to sail past the 6.00m mark ahead of the conference meet. Walker will be in the second flight in the triple alongside her, while Karlijn Schouten and Morgan Bradley continue their trek up the league leaderboards in the pole vault.
XpressTiming.com has the live scoring for this meet; as always, a full recap of events will be available at the conclusion of action on LetsGoPeay.com.
