WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Taking place over Saturday and Sunday, the South Atlantic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships have concluded and the Newberry College men's and women's teams left with some hardware.
On the women's side,
Leonie Samuels set a new meet- and personal-record en route to gold in the shot put competition with a 14.10 meter throw (46 feet, 3 ¼ inches). That was 2 feet, 3 ½ inches clear of the field and earned her one of the Women's Outstanding Field Athletes of the Meet awards.
For the men,
Noel Asiedu cleared a 2.04-meter bar (6 feet, 8 ¼ inches) to win the high jump by 1 and ¼ inches. The win is Asiedu's fifth of the indoor season in as many tries.
"So proud of this team and our staff!" said Director of Track and Field/XC
Jimmy Stephens. "These athletes give everything they have, win or lose. This conference continues to improve exponentially, and is by far the best Division II conference in the country."
Earning silver medals on the men's side were
Maxwell Boisvert in the pole vault, Rahyme Christian in the 60m hurdles and
Kegan Crowell in the weight throw.
Boisvert cleared a 4.46-meter bar (14 feet, 7 ½ inches) for a new career-best. Christian ran the hurdles in 8.01 seconds for a personal-best and missed first place by a mere .05 seconds. And Crowell threw it 16.15 meters (53 feet), just ahead of teammate
Parker Pitts in third (16.07 meters – 52 feet, 8 ¾ inches).
Also earning a bronze result was the men's 4x400m relay team of
Shamar Brown,
Tavarian Thompson,
Landon Tucker and
Justin Canty. They ran it in 3:24.37, less than three seconds off the lead.
Collectively, the men's team finished in sixth place with 48 points and the women were ninth with 24.
"For the first time ever on the men's side, we actually held the lead for a lot of the first day and held on to third most of the second day, but just ran out of depth," Coach Stephens said. "For us to be only seven points out of third place is good, but very bittersweet knowing what we left on the table."
Irma Watson-Peréz narrowly missed out on a bronze medal in the women's weight throw, heaving it 14.92 meters (48 feet, 11 ½ inches), only 4 ¼ inches out of third. Teammate
Andrea Pascual Rivera slotted in behind her in fifth with a 14.35-meter throw (47 feet, 1 inch).
"Our athletes competed extremely hard and did all we asked them to do," Coach Stephens said. "Sarah's (Abumere) injury on Day 1 was a big loss for our women's team and we were several athletes down on the men's side. Those key athletes could've really helped get us to that next level.
"We continue to build and grow this program and our athletes. We had a lot of 'firsts' this championship as well as a bunch of school records, but our ultimate goal is to be on that podium as a team and competing for a championship!"
