GREENSBORO, N.C.-- After one day and three events scored at the MEAC Championships on the campus of North Carolina A&T, the UMES men's track & field team leads the field with 34 ½ points. On the women's side, the Lady Hawks are in sixth with 11 points, but are very much in the thick of things as they trail by 10 points to first place Florida A&M.

The bulk of the men's team's points come from sophomore Khalil Rmidi Kinini (Malaga, Spain) and freshman Oussama Chouati (Manresa, Spain), who finished one-two in the 5000 meter run, good for 18 points. Rmidi Kinini didn't break his record time, but his time of 14:43.36 was good enough to win. Chouati finished 30 seconds behind his teammate with a time of 15:14.65. Sophomore Nassor Whitehead (Sunrise, Fla.) and freshman Stanley Meli (Eldoret, Kenya) raced and earned points in the 5000 as well to bring the team's grand total to 24 for just one event.

Sophomore Barbora Blahutova (Slavkov, Czech Republic) also made up a significant portion of the women's total in the 5000 meter run. She took fourth in the event with a time of 17:52.38, amounting to five points.

In the discus throws, senior Dillon Simon (Roseau, Dominica) tallied a mark of 52.98 meters to win the men's competition, bringing the men's total to 34. It is the third time in three tries that Simon has won a discus event this spring.

The remainder of the team's points was made at the high jump. Sophomore Evelyn Chappell (Bowie, Md.) took fifth in the women's competition with a jump of 1.62 meters, and classmate Shauntel Lucius (Newark, N.J.) reached the same height, placing seventh via a tiebreaker. Combined, they tallied six points to round out the Lady Hawks' scores on day one. Over on the men's side, sophomore Kevin Stanford (Salisbury, Md.) tied for eighth place with a jump of 1.86 meters, earning ½ a point.

Aside from the scored events, freshman Tanise Edwards (Philadelphia, Pa.) finished seventh in the heptathlon with a total of 2489 points over four events--the 100 meter hurdles (686), high jump (736), shot put (353) and the 200 meter dash (714). The final three events in Edwards' competition will be played tomorrow.

Day two begins tomorrow in Greensboro at 9:00 in the morning.