The Daily Gamecock

Track team finds success at 2 invitationals

SEC Indoor Track Championships 2013 at the Randall Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark.
SEC Indoor Track Championships 2013 at the Randall Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark.

South Carolina returns from New Mexico, Virginia

After splitting up for the weekend to participate in two different meets, the South Carolina men’s and women’s track and field teams returned to Columbia with six victories.

The Gamecocks brought home two wins from Albuquerque, N.M., in the Cherry & Silver Invitational. Junior Eric Winfrey, sophomore Jermaine Collier, junior Chris Walker and senior Chris Royster combined to capture first in the men’s 4×400-meter relay on Day Two with a time of 3:12.02. On the first day of the competition, senior Jeannelle Scheper won her second high jump in 2 weeks.

The Albuquerque Convention Center, the site of the Cherry & Silver Invitational, will also host to the 2014 NCAA Indoor Championships in mid-March. Fittingly, the meet this weekend was arguably the Gamecocks’ toughest of the regular season. Of the 31 schools represented, six fielded ranked men’s teams while five ranked women’s teams — including the No. 11 Gamecocks — competed.

Junior Kendall Kee said that the team can benefit from facing highly-ranked teams in order to get the competitive juices flowing.

“It’s good to get out and face people other than your teammates,” Kee said. “Sometimes, even without doing it on purpose, you kind of hold back with your teammates. When it’s competition, it’s competition. It’s all out.”

South Carolina collected four more wins at the Hokie Invitational in Blacksburg, Va. Kee along with Ahtyana Johnson swept the men’s and women’s 60-meter dash on Friday. Both runners set personal records in the final with times of 6.68 and 7.44, respectively.

After achieving his personal best ove the weekend, Kee said his success came as no surprise to him.

“It felt good,” Kee said. “I feel like I’ve been capable of it for the last two year. I look at it as it’s finally my breakout.”

Johnson, Kee’s 60-meter counterpart, followed up her Friday performance with a personal record of 24.17 in the 200-meter dash to claim second place.

Freshman Precious Holmes captured her first win in the 400-meters on Saturday, setting a personal record of 55.17 in the process. Junior Drew Ricci also had a record-breaking performance on Saturday, as his personal best of 1:52.92 was good for first place in the 800 meters. Sophomore Juan Stenner finished just over a second later to capture second place.

Coach Curtis Frye noted that the Hokie’s smaller facility, which some Gamecocks visited for a second consecutive weekend, is beneficial to his athletes’ development due to the crowd noise.

“They got into the hype and the atmosphere,” Frye said. “And inside that little place there it can get to be a good atmosphere when you have teams in there and have their home crowd come out.”

South Carolina will return to action this weekend when the team travels to Winston Salem, N.C., to compete in the Hilton Garden Invitational.


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