Gamecocks look to continue improving after Saturday meet
The South Carolina track and field team competed at the Auburn Invitational on Saturday, looking to follow up an impressive performance at the Virginia Tech Invitational last week.
USC faced some of the most elite teams in the nation, including SEC foes Auburn, Alabama, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Georgia and Tennessee. Central Florida, Clemson, Florida State and Texas were also present, all nationally ranked.
The Gamecocks responded by having five top five finishes overall, four on the men’s side and one on the women’s. Clayton Gravesande led the pack with a third-place finish in the 400-meter with a time of 48.34 seconds.
Team captain Louis Day knew that the competition this week would be stiffer than the last time out, but he thought the team performed well as a whole.
“We have a pretty young team this year, so I thought they did as well as you can expect them to,” Day said. “As for me, I didn’t do as well as I wanted. I want to place in the top three every time out.”
Freshman Damiere Byrd made his Gamecock debut in track and field, and he immediately had an impact. He was the top Carolina performer in the 60-meter dash with a time of 6.79 seconds, which was good enough for 12th place overall. The two-sport speedster played receiver last fall for the Gamecocks where he caught a pass for 16 yards and also rushed 10 times for 73 yards.
The women’s 4x400 relay team of Christal Green, Erika Rucker, Ahtyana Johnson and Vashti Bandy placed fifth with a time of 3 minutes, 43.87 seconds to lead the women. USC standout Kierre Beckles took seventh place in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.41 seconds.
Junior transfer Jarrod Hutchen followed up a second-place finish in the men’s long jump last week with a 7.35-meter jump Saturday, which put him in third place. The men’s 4x400 relay team of Gravesande, Eric Winfrey, Chris Royster and Chris Maxwell also performed well in Alabama, posting a time of 3:16.09, which earned them a fifth-place finish.
Royster notched his second top-five finish in as many meets with a time of 21.56 seconds in the individual 200-meter. After breaking the school record for women’s high jump last week, sophomore Jeannelle Scheper took 11th place after a jump of 1.72 meters. Petra Olsen narrowly missed a top-five finish in the women’s pole vault after placing second in Virginia.
Christopher Walker, Juan Stenner, Nejmi Burnside and Nigel Redic led Carolina’s other 4x400 team to another top ten finish with a time of 3:20.89, landing them in eighth place.
The results Saturday weren’t the same as last week when the Gamecocks had three first-place finishes and five second-place ones but head coach Curtis Frye is content with his team.
“We have had a lot of good performances so far,” Frye said. “It’s early. We spent six weeks training since Thanksgiving, so for where we are, we know we have six weeks to get ready for the conference meet.”
As for Day, he is looking to get better as the season progresses and expects his team to perform well in advance of the SEC championships.
“I want to achieve my personal best this season and get better,” Day said. “The goal is to perform well in the SEC Championships and nationals. We need to get ready for the competition and compete the best we can. We are a talented team so we can do something.”