McCartney's time of 2:14.26 was two-tenths of a second behind the pace of the winner, Emily Emerson from North Dakota.

"She had a huge improvement this week," commented Drake track and field head coach Natasha Brown." It was a big push for her to make a significant improvement from her result from last week."

Samani's jump of 5 feet 5.75 inches was 1.25 inches shy of her personal best, which she has jumped twice this season.

Fellow senior Casey McDermott (Newton, Iowa) placed 12th in the 3,000-meter seeded race finishing in 9:51.98. McDermott also competed in the seeded round of the mile run where her time of 4:59.60 earned her a 22nd-place finish.

Senior Beth Hamling (Council Bluffs, Iowa) finished 14th in the seeded round of the 400-meter race in a time of 56.37, a season best.

"I was impressed with her run as well," said Brown. "When you have a breakthrough as she did last week, it's hard to repeat it the next weekend."

Sophomore Marissa Smith (Ajax, Ontario) advanced to the finals of the 60-meter hurdles and finished 15th clocking in at 9.02, which was slightly slower than her 8.80 qualifying time. Senior Ari Curtis (Fort Collins, Colo.) was clocked in 9.12 to finish 21st, while sophomore Sarah Yeager (Ottumwa, Iowa) had a time of 9.15 to register a 25th-place finish.

Senior Clarissa LaFlora (Kewanee, Ill.) was 10th in the 400-meter non-seeded race finishing in 58.47, while Yeager clocked in at 58.65 to finish 13th.

"This was the most important weekend trying to figure out where we are," said Brown. "Next weekend will be a tune up for our athletes where we will have some of them just participating in one event and for some it will be a last chance effort to make the conference roster."

Drake will travel to Iowa City, Iowa next Friday (Feb. 18) to participate in the Iowa Invitational. The invite will be the last one for the Bulldogs before the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Track And Field Championship in Cedar Falls, Iowa on Feb. 26 and 27.