MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (2/29/04) The North Texas women’s track and field team came up short in their bid for the first ever indoor championship as they finished in second place at the Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championship. On the men’s side the Mean Green finished in fifth place but individually North Texas had record breaking performances.  

“I’m very proud of the way that came here and competed,” said North Texas head coach Rick Watkins. “Middle Tennessee is very tough to beat at home but we had a lot of people that stepped up and really came here and competed well”.  

Senior David Turner, from Ryan High School in Denton , broke the school record in the 400-meters with a mark of 47.73. The men’s 4x400 relay team comprised of Arthur Cox, David Turner, Derek Logan, Andre Douglas their best day of the season with a second place finish at 3:12.53.  

Sprinter Derek Logan had a season-best time in the 200-meter dash at 21.79 and was only a tenth of a second off his school record time of 21.69. Lee Porter also had a season-best time in the 800-meter dash as he was second with a time of 1:54.95.  

On the women’s side Jessica Schmidt concluded her spectacular performance at the meet by capturing the 5,000 meters with a dominating time of 17:25.91, 39 seconds better than the second place finisher. Schmidt was named the Women’s Outstanding Track Performer as she scored the most points in the meet with 26 in three events.

”She (Schmidt) is an extremely talented athlete and she had a great meet for us. I’m really happy to see her do so well” Watkins said.  

Schmidt becomes the first North Texas female athlete to win multiple events at an indoor championship. She also won the 3,000-meter run in the first day of competition. Schmidt didn’t finish her day after the 5,000-meters as she also placed third in the mile run with a time of 5:10.50.  

Middle Tennessee swept both team titles for the fourth consecutive year.