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CINCINNATI, Ohio -- After day one, senior Uhunoma Osazuwa is making a run at her second consecutive BIG EAST heptathlon title as she leads the competition with 3,497 points. The defending BIG EAST heptathlon champion teamed up with junior teammate Kelsey Rubeor to give Syracuse the crown in all four events on Friday afternoon at the BIG EAST Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the University of Cincinnati's Gettler Stadium. Osazuwa accounted for three of the event titles to power her first-place standing.

"Coming into this weekend, I just wanted to get closer to PRs," Osazuwa said. "I did well in hurdles -- I ran into a pretty strong headwind, but I was pretty solid. In high jump I had a really nice PR -- I went 1.79m and my PR is 1.76m. The competition for high jump was really good. In shot put, I also had a good PR because it is about 11.41. In the 200-meter dash, I did about four-tenths of a second better than at Sea Ray Relays, so overall the day was really good. My PR on day one is usually about 3,300 and right now I'm closer to 3,500 points. Coach (Borozinski) said that as long as I keep at this pace, I'm on track for automatic for NCAAs. Hopefully the weather holds up tomorrow and I can finish with a long, solid javelin and 800-meter run."

Osazuwa is looking to keep the top of the podium Orange for the fourth consecutive year. The Las Vegas product is headed toward a repeat performance of last year's BIG EAST Championship after posting winning marks in the 100-meter dash (14.08), 200-meter dash (24.82) and tying for first in the high jump (1.79). She finished second to Rubeor in the shot put (12.00). Osazuwa, who compiled an NCAA Regional-qualifying total of 5,236 points to become the 2009 BIG EAST heptathlon champion, succeeded graduate Jillian Drouin, who won back-to-back conference crowns in 2007 and 2008.

Rubeor currently sits in sixth place in the heptathlon with 3,010 points. The multi-event veteran put up her best performance of the afternoon with a first-place victory in the shot put (12.53). She also recorded a time of 16.11 in the 100-meter dash and topped five others in the high jump with a vault of 1.70m. Rubeor finished the first day with a time of 26.45 in the 200-meter dash.

On the men's side, junior Evan Stivala is driving the Orange's efforts in eighth place through four events in the decathlon. His fifth-place showing in the high jump (1.88m) was his best of the afternoon, while he also picked up sixth-place in the long jump (6.49m). He was tabbed 12th in the shot put with a measurement of 11.40m and was 13th in the 100-meter dash (12.01). He finished the afternoon with a 10th-place performance in the 400-meter dash (51.87) to conclude the day with 3,340 points.

Day two of the BIG EAST Championships gets underway at 9 a.m. tomorrow when the decathlon continues with the 110-meter hurdles.