Tearing around the final turn of the 4x400-meter relay, in front of a screaming throng of teammates and fans at this past weekend's Sykes-Sabock Challenge Cup, with Eastern Michigan's Bria Woods literally right beside her, Penn State's Kamilah Salaam silently refused to lose.

"Adrenaline kind of kicked in on the last 100 [meters], and I was like, 'She's not beating me,' " Salaam said.

Her prediction was correct.

Salaam edged out Woods by 0.02 seconds to clinch the win for Penn State's relay team that also included Dominique Blake, Shana Cox and Gayle Hunter. The four combined for a Penn State record-breaking time and NCAA provisional qualifying time of 3:40.07.

Salaam's strong performance in the 4x400 capped off a career-best weekend for the sophomore sprinter, who earned 19 individual points for Penn State and tallied personal records in every event in which she participated. She began the weekend by demonstrating her ability to recover quickly between races, placing fourth in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.58 seconds and then minutes later finishing third in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.51 seconds.

"The turnaround time is only about five minutes," Penn State coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. "For her to pull off fourth and third, great efforts there."

When Saturday's portion of the competition rolled around, Salaam continued her pattern of success, placing second in the 200-meter run with an NCAA provisional qualifying time of 23.85 seconds.

However, she received a scare as she pulled up lame after the race with pain in her hamstring that she thought might have been a strain, and needed to be helped off the track. She was having doubts as to whether she would be able to run the 4x400 relay, but assistant coach Chris Johnson quickly dispelled her fears, letting her know that it was just a muscle spasm.

"I told her I wouldn't put her in a position where she's going to hurt herself," Johnson said. "I'm always going to protect the athlete on the side of caution, but I knew ... it was just a spasm. I've had athletes have them before. It wasn't anything new or out of the ordinary."

And if that was not enough to kill her worries, her performance in the 4x400 relay certainly was. After the race when asked if her injury was anything serious, she laughed and said, "apparently not."

"She had an excellent weekend," Johnson said. "She's still got more in the tank. She's finally coming around. She's getting a lot better, but we're looking for bigger things. It's just the beginning."

Salaam agrees that she has more in her tank and warned everyone to be on the look out for Penn State heading into the Big Ten Championships in two weeks.

"We've been going through Hell to get where we're at," Salaam said. "We're not going to give up anytime soon."

That's the type of winning attitude that Alford-Sullivan loves about Salaam.

"She's a true competitor," Alford-Sullivan said. "She just gives it up for the blue and white."