Both men’s and women’s track and field squads traveled to Wallace Wade Stadium this weekend to compete in the Duke Invitational. With two weeks to go until the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, sprinters, jumpers, throwers and distance runners are preparing themselves mentally and physically for meet to come.
Junior Emmanuel Davis who finished first in the long jump, but was not completely satisfied with his 23′ 1 ¾ ” jump is prepared to work harder to reach his goal.
“You always want to do your best and I know I can jump a lot better than that,” Davis said. “I was content with placing first overall in an event and going into ACC’s in the next couple of weeks, that’s a good confidence booster and it’s going to make me work harder to get better.”
Followed by Davis in the long jump, were teammates Lamont Savage in second and junior Kwame Boatwright leaped to ninth place on Saturday. On the women’s team, sophomore Karimah Shephard finished in second place with a jump of 18’5 ¼”.
More field event competitors included freshmen Lacey Shuman on the women’s side with a 5′ 5″ high jump putting her in fourth place, along with junior Lawanda Henry in second for the weight throw at 175′ 2″ and top collegiate thrower in the discus with a season’s best toss of 163′ 10″ was junior Brittany Hampton.
For Friday’s field events Boatwright competed in the men’s triple jump and finished second with a personal best of 49′ 11 ¼” while sophomore Jazueline Daniels leaped to 39′ 4 ½” to land the second place spot.
As for the sprinter and hurdlers sophomore James Robinson had a personal best time of 54.56 seconds in the 400-meter high hurdles to finish in eighth.
The 4 X 100 meter relay squad which comprised of A’Tolani Akinuotu, Ben Major, Miles Walker and Daniel Fretz finished third overall with a time of 42.13 seconds. Each athlete on the relay team also competed in other events such as Akinuotu and Major who took seventh in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, along with teammates Walker and Fretz who participated in the 400-meter dashes finishing eighth and 14th.
Distance runners were also included in the number of athletes who competed in the Duke Invitational. Freshmen Erin Mercer is among one of them, and raced in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a winning time of 10:23.21. She felt that the competition was great and did her best not to focus too much on the time but rather the wall between each part of her 3,000-meter race on the track.
“I was definitely nervous, but your only option is to just run and try to jump over the barrier,” Mercer said. “I didn’t realize we were running that fast because I was just focused on sticking with the group of girls I was running with and going over that barrier, so when I heard the time, it was pretty exciting.
With the last 200 meters to go, Mercer broke away from the pack of girls to win and teammate senior Kara McKenna earned a time of 10:49.65 to finish in sixth place respectively. Sophomore Brian Himelright raced in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase and finished second with a time of 8:59.11.
Track and field will have one more invitational meet in Chapel Hill, April 16th, before traveling to Durham once again for the ACC championships starting April 21st.
