JACKSONVILLE, Ala. – April 5, 2008 – Led by senior Allison Kreutzer and junior Kim Larry, the Clayton State Laker women’s track & field team continued to set records on Saturday at the Gem of the Hills Invitational, hosted by Jacksonville State. The Lakers finished fourth, set three team records, won three events, set two meet records and hit two NCAA Division II provisional qualifying marks.

Kreutzer won a pair of events - the 1500-meter and 5,000-meter runs - while Larry won the high jump. Both ladies also set meet records – Kreutzer in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 17:29.47 minutes, and Larry cleared 5-7 feet. Both ladies hit NCAA provisional marks, though not as high as last week’s efforts at Emory.

Overall, the Lakers scored 54 points, while host Jacksonville State outdistanced everyone with 170.50 points to runner-up Samford’s 122 points. Third place went to Alabama State and Georgia State rounded out the top five finishing one point behind Clayton State with 53 points.

"We did better than I thought, after reviewing the results," said Clayton State head coach Mike Mead. "I had higher expectations, but this was a much more competitive meet than last year. The weather did not help much, considering it was cool and damp and those conditions do not help field events and sprints.

"We did manage to finish ahead of Alabama-Huntsville and Peach Belt Conference rival Columbus State. Considering our much smaller squad size to those we faced on Saturday, we held our own pretty well."

The school records that were set on Saturday came from Keisha Etienne in the 100-meter hurdles, Jon Taylor in the 100-meter dash and Shantel Ragin in the triple jump.

Etienne finished ninth in the 100-meter hurdles in 15.74, while Taylor also finished ninth, running 12.68 in the 100-meter dash. Ragin, making her first appearance of the outdoor season, broke the Lakers’ triple jump record which had been previously set the week before by teammate Tierra Yates. Ragin, like Yates last week at Emory, placed second in the triple jump with a leap of 35-11¼ feet.

Freshman Chelsea Ellis had another solid week, finishing third to Kreutzer in the 1500-meter run. Kreutzer won with a time of 4:47.11, while Ellis hit 4:49.74, which is a personal best. Ellis came back later to place seventh in the 800-meter run in 2:26.38, and anchored the 4x400-meter relay team of Etienne, Terrica Hamilton and Kara Stokes to a sixth place finish .

Also scoring points for Clayton State in the meet were Taylor in the long jump (sixth), Yates in the triple jump (eighth) and Teresa Smith-Dack in the javelin (eighth).

The Lakers face tougher competition next Saturday as they travel to Tallahassee, Fla. to compete in the Seminole Invitational at Florida State.