Huntington, W.Va. – Junior Sierra Kelley paced the Morehead State women's indoor track and field team by winning her heat of the 300-meter dash in Thursday's first meet of the season, a dual, the Marshall Opener at the Jeff Small Track in the Chris Cline Indoor Athletics Complex.

Kelley covered the distance in 42.61 to place second overall behind Heat 1 winner Mikah Alleyne of Marshall.

Kelley used a late burst to surge past Raegen Hefner on the home stretch and edge the Thundering Herd junior by nine-hundredths of a second.

"I always try to get out of the blocks real quick, so I can get a head start in the race. When I get over to the curves, I try to hug the curves and just keep my arms pumping, making sure they are in my face," Kelley said. "When I get on the final stretch, the girl was about to beat me but I just continued to move my arms, drive my legs and I finished strong."

With around 60 meters to go, Kelley believed winning was within her grasp.

"Whenever I told myself I can do this, I can get her, she's right there; just keep pumping my arms, picking up my legs and you'll get her. And I did," she added. "I just had to trust in myself; that's all."

It was her first official 300m, so it was a 'pr'. Although she said she had run a 300m in a test event last year and clocked in 43 seconds.

"Sierra, she showed good strength there toward the end of her 300m," MSU coach Clay Dixon said.

The Eagles had three other entries in the 300m race, with junior Dallas Jones placing fourth in 44.92, freshman Keana Meriwether in fifth in 45.72 and freshman JD Camacho in sixth in 47.49.

Coach Dixon entered nine runners in five events. Only Jones competed in multiple events.

"Really today was just about getting almost like the jitters (out). It was sort of a rust-buster for most of our people, for our sprinters. This is our first race for our sprinters since May. So really, it's just like I said, kinda getting out there and seeing where we're at," Dixon said. "I was pretty pleased with our sprints. If you look at where they were two years ago when we came here you see typically most of them improve that were here in previous years."

In addition to the 300m, Jones also ran the 200-meter dash, where she finished sixth with a time of 32.02.

"Dallas, she had a really strong finish and then she came back five minutes later (and ran again). It was basically a workout for her. She did her 300m and then five minutes later, she's doing a 200m," Dixon said. "That is essentially what we do for track workouts. You do repeat after repeat (sprints) and that's kind of how we treat it with some of those people doing doubles like that."

Freshman Lucy Singleton matched Kelley for the Eagles' best finish of the night after claiming second in the 400-meter run in 1:02.43. Freshman Cloe Copas was third in the race in 1:04.43. Marshall's Jillian King was the winner in 58.59.

Freshman Laikin Tarlton placed third in the 600-meter run in a time of 1:44.35.

"The 600 meters was the longest race. It was really just kind of for kicks and giggles. I had Laikin go out there. She'd never run anything lower than an 800 meter and the last time she did that she was a junior in high school. So, it was nice to see her go out there and just kind of experiment," Dixon said. "And then Lucy and Cloe, they finish off the cross-country season less than a month ago and they only got probably a week or two of (track training), and it was fun to go out there and see them go out there and do a 400m and just kinda see where they're at."

Rounding out the sprint events, freshman Grace Lopez's 8.46 was good enough for fifth place in the 60-meter dash, while sophomore Tayla Lee also captured fifth in the 200m in a time of 29.23.

The hosts won the team competition with 168 points, while Morehead State finished with 48.

The Eagles will be off for the next six weeks before returning to action on Saturday, Jan. 15 at the Marshall Classic.