On Friday and Saturday, the Missouri Southern women’s indoor track and field team will compete in the MIAA championship meet after competing Feb. 21 in the University of Oklahoma Invitational in Norman.

While at OU, the Lions saw many things that made them excited for the upcoming conference meet.

“The thing that we saw this weekend, and with our sprinters in particular, was improved performances,” said Patty Vavra, head coach. “Our sprint crew is starting to get a little bit faster, and our jumpers could be a factor in the conference meet.”

During the meet, Mary Still, senior hurdler/sprinter, broke the Southern record for the 400-meter sprint. The old record, also held by Still, was 55.9 seconds, and she improved that mark to 55.7.

“It was a pretty big accomplishment,” Still said. “It was two-tenths of a second faster than I’ve run before. It felt like I started the season really strong, and I thought, ‘I’ll be running really fast, really soon.’ I was really excited. It was just a great day.”

Other Lions also improved on their season bests, Feb. 21.

Sara Mueller, sophomore high jumper, jumped 5-7, a 1 3/4 inches over her previous best, and Ashley Caffey, junior distance runner, took more than eight seconds off her one-mile time, finishing the event with a time of 5 minutes, 12 seconds at OU.

While recent performances have the Lions feeling confident about their chances in the upcoming MIAA championship meet, they are not willing to say they will win the conference title.

Vavra doesn’t “honestly” think the team has the “depth” needed to win the conference championship, but she believes the team will make an impact.

“I think that it would be a surprise,” said Jen Noelken, senior distance runner. “But I don’t think that you can ever rule anyone out. There’s always that possibility. You have to have that confidence that you can do it, or else nothing is going to get done.”

The Lions are aware they do have some advantages they haven’t enjoyed in previous years.

Still believes the team has more confidence than it had at the beginning of the year.

“We’ve also been improving every week,” she said.

“I think that we have a great team this year that has a lot of talent,” Noelken said. “A lot of them are young, but there’s just so much talent there that I think that we will fare well when it comes down to it.”