BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – For the first time ever in Samford University's Track & Field history the women's program finally brought home a SoCon Indoor Track & Field Championship on Saturday, Feb. 27, at the Birmingham CrossPlex. It was the first indoor conference championship for either the men or the women's program.

After having a very successful first day of competition qualifying for the finals and putting up 86 total points to lead on the women's side, the Bulldogs set out on Saturday to finish what the team had started.

"On the women's side that is the definition of finishing a track meet. From start to finish today we did everything we could possibly do to win this championship." Head Coach Rod Tiffin Continued. "To finish the championships with the 4x400 the way we did just capped it off. It was the first time our women had won the 4x400 at conference and it was just a phenomenal finish to the day, I couldn't have asked for more."

Sarah Sanford, Victoria Wicks, Abbie Cutcliffe and senior Kimberly Ruch capped off the competition the way any championship performance should be by giving everything they had in the women's 4x400 relay despite already having secured the SoCon Indoor Championship. The team won the relay with a time of 3:48.69 which was just shy of the Samford record.

Ruch and Sanford could be seen throughout the day as Ruch took 2^nd in the women's 200-meter dash (24.51), 2^nd in the 60-meter dash (7.59) and 6^th in the 60-meter hurdles (8.92). Sanford took the title in the women's 60-meter hurdles (8.44) while placing 2^nd in the women's 400 meters (55.51).

However the championship day could not have been possible without stand out performances from numerous others on the women's squad as the Bulldogs captured 2^nd (Karisa Nelson – 4:53.22), 3^rd (Ansley Bos – 4:53.97) & 4^th (Emma Garner – 4:55.99) in the women's mile to go along with 2^nd, 3^rd & 6^th place performances in the women's triple jump and weight throw.

Megan Meadow (2^nd – 11.90m), Hannah Hardy (3^rd – 11.63m) and Tiana Pisoni (6^th- 11.54m) scored points in the triple jump while Aerial Horton (2^nd – 16.49m), Tatiana Taylor (3^rd – 16.24m) and Ruby Caldwell (6^th – 14.91m) contributed in the women's weight throw.

The men faced an uphill battle on championship Saturday after closing out day one with 38 points, 20 points behind Western Carolina who finished the day leading the men's competition. Despite being down in points and manpower the Bulldogs were certainly not out of the competition.

"I told the guys that I am as much of proud of them as I am the women for what they were able to accomplish today. That was a gutsy effort today – we were under-maned and undersized – we just kept fighting and fighting and found some way to get second place." Tiffin explained. "Those are the types of performances that keep you coming back and winning championships in the long run, not settling for a third or fourth place finish – which would have been easy for those guys to do today since you could look around and see guys in boots along with guys competing that weren't one hundred percent."

Senior Brandon Hazouri and sophomore Arsene Guillorel combined for 30 points during Saturday's competition and captured those points in dominant fashion. Hazouri took home SoCon Individual Championships in the men's 800-meter run (1:51.31) and mile (4:10.17) competitions while Guillorel blazed his way to a record setting performance in the men's 5,000 meter race.

Guillorel's time of 13:55.73 not only won the race but broke the Samford record, CrossPlex record and 35-year old Southern Conference record set in 1981 by ETSU's Adrian Leek.

The gutsy performances didn't stop there for the men as the Bulldogs swept the pole vault competition thanks to Tray Oates (1^st – 5.10m), Austin Eckenroth (2^nd – 5.00m) and Gavin Gautreau (3^rd – 5.00m).

Last but not least for the men were heroic performances by Drew Patterson and Austin Billings. Both Patterson (3^rd – 4,706) and Billings (6^th – 4,368) set new personal bests in the men's heptathlon while Patterson also captured the Samford record in the 1,000 meters (2:46.52).

As a whole both the men's and women's programs set their sights on the 2016 outdoor season while a few wait to see if their marks send them to this year's NCAA Division I Track & Field Championships.