IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Drake University track and field teams competed in their final regular-season indoor meet of the season at the Iowa Invite on Friday evening. The small meet served as the Bulldogs' final competitive tune-up before next weekend's Missouri Valley Conference Championship.

The Bulldogs' women's team dominated the sprints with the team picking up seven top-5 finishes in the 60 and 200 meter races. Tiara Winston (Denton, Texas) won the 60 meters with a personal best time of 7.71 and returned later to finish fifth in the 200 meters with a 26.00 finish. Danyelle Cole (Kansas City, Kan.) finished right behind Winston in the 60 meters in 7.72 and took third in the 200 meters with a time of 25.18.

“Tiara and Danyelle continue to put up good times in the 60 meters,” said Drake head coach Natasha Kaiser-Brown. “We continue to look for that 7.60 race and think it should happen next week.”

Drake's women also took three of the top five spots in the 400 meters with India Knight's (Germantown, Md.) second-place finish in 58.94 leading the way.

The hurdles continued to be a strong suit for the Bulldogs as well with Destani Welch (Des Moines, Iowa) and Ashley Johnson combining to go 1-2 in the 60-meter hurdles with times of 8.90 and 8.97, respectively.

The men's sprinters had Kai Asberry (Carrollton, Texas) turn in a season-best time of 6.96 in the preliminary heats before finishing fifth in the finals in 7.00. Asberry ran the opening leg of the men's first-place 4x400-meter relay team

“Kai Asberry had a good day running a strong lead leg in the 4x400 relay and that will be a confidence booster for him going into the conference championship,” Kaiser-Brown said. “Ian Wells showed his readiness for the MVC meet by running a solid 400 meters and anchoring the 4x400-meter relay with a 48-second split.”

In addition to anchoring that relay, Wells took third in the 400 meters in 50.00.

In the distance events, Drake got a second-place showing from Doug Brady (Englewood, Colo.) in the mile in 4:19.52 while the women's team had Samantha Nielsen (Maplewood, Minn.) take first in the 800 meters with a personal best of 2:18.88 with Taylor Scholl (Prior Lake, Minn.) finishing in second just over one second behind.

The Bulldogs will have one more week of training before beginning the championship portion of their season next weekend at the MVC Championship in Cedar Falls, Iowa, at the UNI-Dome.

“I like where we are in terms of being 'competition ready,'” Kaiser-Brown said. “We just have to stay healthy this week and let our best performances come out.”