JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. -- As expected the Azusa Pacific women grabbed the early lead at the NAIA Indoor Track & Field Championships during Thursday’s opening day competition of the 3-day meet held on the campus of East Tennessee State University.

Zora Golcevska and Tiffeny Parker finished second and fourth, respectively, in the pentathlon in the only event final staged on the day to tally 12 points for the Cougars. Biola University is second with 10 points garnered off Natasha Miller’s victory in the pentathlon.

Golcevska used a personal-record 2:24.71 in the 800 meters and a season-best efforts of 5’ 3” in the high jump and 8.87 in the 60-meter hurdles to score a personal-best 3,763 points and finish second in the pentathlon. Miller, an up-and-coming sophomore out of British Columbia, served noticed 2 weeks ago that she would threaten Golcevska, the 2007 NAIA pentathlon champ, when she beat her in a meet at Azusa Pacific. Miller exploded in today’s 5 events to run away from Golcevska and the remaining 14 pentathletes with a school-record tally of 3,943 points.

Likewise, Parker put together her best pentathlon ever with a score of 3,418 points, parlaying an event-opening personal-best 8.89 in the 60-meter hurdles into an eventual fourth-place finish and an additional 4 points for the Cougars.

The rest of the day’s competition was spent running preliminary races, including the women’s 4x400-meter relay in which Azusa Pacific moved on to the finals with a 3:54.44 registered by Alyssa Shury, Emily Nash, Becca Reyes and Mandy Ross.

In the men’s competition of Thursday, sophomore Casey Stevick currently sits in the second place after the first day of the 2-day heptathlon. Stevick closed the first day with a personal-record leap of 6’ 2¾” in the high jump to tally 2,957 points through the first 4 events.

Fellow sophomore Jeff Altizer is currently tenth with 2,640 points, while senior Devin Mancuso-Wills is 15th at 2,463 points.

In other prelims, the Cougar men did not move on in the 4x400-meter relay, clocking a 3:17.57, just .51 of a second from qualifying for the finals. However, the 2-time defending NAIA champ in the distance medley relay, Azusa Pacific posted the best prelim time in the DMR with a 10:05.63, paced by Garrett Zambrows, Kyle Clark, John Pfiel, and Aron Rono.

Day 2 of the 3-meet opens Friday at 10 a.m. (EST) with the conclusion of the men’s heptathlon. The first event on the track is scheduled for noon.

Click here for real-time results to follow Azusa Pacific at the NAIA championship meet.