STARKVILLE, Miss. -- Arkansas junior Lilli Kleinmann won seven Southeastern
Conference championships before the 2002 season began, but No. 8 was
definitely the sweetest.

Kleinmann returned from a hamstring injury suffered a week before the SEC
indoor meet Friday night to win the 10,000 meters at the 2002 SEC outdoor
championships at Mississippi State to cap Arkansas' day as the team leader
going into today's action.

"This is the best SEC title," said Kleinmann, who won in 35 minutes, 53.44
seconds. "Because of everything I went through, this is just crazy. It's
unreal."

Freshman Penny Splichal came in second (36:04.32) to give Arkansas 18 points
in the event.

"It's just a tribute to Lilli's toughness," said Arkansas coach Lance Harter.
"She was so patient through the first 5,000 meters and then she walked every
one down."

Arkansas ends the day with 37 points to top the field. The Lady'Backs got 11
points in the hep and eight in the hammer throw and lead South Carolina's 20,
Auburn's 18 and Florida's 17 as they pursue their third straight SEC outdoor
title.

Kleinmann said the only reason she stepped on the track was for Harter and
the team. Harter allowed her plenty of time to rest her injury and even let
her out of practice to heal.

"No other coach in the country would have done that," Kleinmann said. "I did
this to give back to him and help us defend our title."

Kleinmann also came down with a case of the flu this week and couldn't run
Monday or Tuesday.

"I was rested," Kleinmann said. "I didn't expect anything. I just wanted to
get a point or two for the team. I approached it like a jog or a training run
and I was picturing it like just another loop around the trails (Arkansas'
training grounds in the hills west of campus)."

For the second time in two days, Arkansas senior heptathlete DeeDee Brown saw
a hard-fought lead disappear in the day's final event.

After Brown lost the first-day lead to South Carolina senior Tacita Bass
following the 200 meters Thursday, Bass overcame a 40-point deficit to claim
the Southeastern Conference heptathalon title by beating Brown in the 800 for
a winning total of 5,588. Brown was second with a season-best 5,553.

"I just got beat," Brown said. "She deserved to win."

Bass needed to run more than four seconds faster than Brown in the 800 to win
and posted a time of 2:16.64 to win the event. Brown ran a personal-best
2:22.1 for second, not enough to hold off Bass.

"The 800 is one of my strongest events," Bass said. "But I was still the most
nervous I've ever been. I was confident, I knew I could do it, but it was
still nerve-wracking."

It was a back-and-forth competition for Bass and Brown, ranked 1-2 in the hep
entering the championships.

Brown took a 149-point lead into the 200 meters by winning the shot put
against Bass on her final throw only to see it turn into a 16-point deficit
at the end of the night. The two were separated by a mere centimeter in the
long jump, the first event Friday, and Brown took the lead by winning the
javelin with a throw of 131 feet, 11 inches.

"It was exciting," Bass said. "DeeDee is a great competitor all the
time.There were a lot of ups and downs. It was a good way to end our SEC
careers as seniors."

Arkansas senior Loren Leaverton took sixth with 4,497 points and freshman
Kristal Walton had a career-high 4,509 points for 10th.

Brown had promised to fight Bass to the end Friday and said she did just
that.

"That was my goal," she said. "I gave all that I had, I PR'd in the 800, got
a few points for the team. I'm more satisfied that I didn't give up."

Arkansas associate head coach Lonnie Greene was satisfied as well.

"If you're going to go out, that's the way you want to go out -- fighting all
the way to the end," Greene said. "Now she knows that on any given day, 'I
can be there.' In three weeks, we'll do it again at the national
championships. She didn't PR in the hurdles, the high jump, the long jump,
the javelin. Her only PR was in the 800."

Arkansas senior Marie LeJour, the Commissioner's Trophy winner as high-point
scorer at the 2001 SEC outdoor meet, took second in the hammer throw for
eight points, a two-point bonus for Arkansas' scoring projections.

LeJour was actually a bit insulted at a Lady'Backs team meeting two months
ago when she was told she was expected to produce six points by taking third
in the SEC hammer throw.

"I was thinking, 'You know, I think I could win it,'" LeJour said.

She didn't win it Friday, but she did hold her spot in the SEC rankings with
the second-place finish, her second-best throw ever (189-4) after breaking
her school record for the third time this season last week at the Razorback
Twilight Meet (190-7).

Florida's Candice Scott won the event with a throw of 198-7 and teammate
LaQuanda Cotton was third (183-3).

LeJour held off Candice Gonzalez and Mallory McDonald of LSU, who were ranked
third and fifth behind LeJour coming into the meet. Gonzalez was fourth and
McDonald seventh to produce only six points in the event for the Lady Tigers,
a favorite to take the team title.

Florida, another favorite, also stumbled when Aisha Smith of Kentucky (fifth)
and Stacy Martin of Auburn (sixth) beat out the Lady Gators' Erin Gilreath
(eighth).

Expecting more than 20 points from the hammer, The Lady Gators got 17.

"It's very important for the team title," LeJour said. "My warm-ups were
horrible, but warm-ups don't count. I got a good one right off the bat to get
into second, but I knew LSU was only a couple feet behind me."

Gonzalez scratched on two of three attempts trying to catch LeJour in the
finals and McDonald fouled on all three tries

"I've competed against them all year," LeJour said. "And every time, I've
beaten them. The girls I was worried about were the Florida girls. They come
in to SECs nearly every year and do well. I don't think the girl that got
third was expecting to get third."

LeJour will try to defend her title in the discus today, a tall task as she
enters the competition ranked ninth more than 14 feet out of first.

"The plan is to defend," LeJour said. "I'm going into the javelin wanting to
win, I'm going into the shot put wanting to win. It's about putting it on the
line. It doesn't matter what you're marks are entering the meet. The SEC can
eat you alive. That's what we've been telling our young girls.

"It's a dogfight."