Track and field team faces top-25 competition
Eight top-25 teams stand between the South Carolina track and field team and an SEC championship.
The Gamecocks are set to compete in the SEC Indoor Championships, which are held annually at Texas A&M, against some of the nation’s best teams, including the top-three teams in the country: Arkansas, Florida and Texas A&M.
“If you can compete with them and hang close and score in the SEC, you know you’re one of the best athletes in the world at your age,” coach Curtis Frye said. “Being a young team, that’s what we are doing. If we get to be a top-five team in the SEC, we could be a top-10 NCAA team. Our goal for the men is to be a top-10 team. For the women, let’s try to be seventh.”
The Gamecocks will bring four sprinters from the men’s team who are ranked in the top-15 in the conference, while the women bring eight who are ranked into the top-11, including the 4×4 relay team of Briana Haith, Precious Holmes, Marisa Bellamy and Tamera Harris.
On the men’s side, hurdler Jermaine Collier enters the championships ranked fourth in the conference, and Dondre Echols enters at ninth. Along with the hurdlers, sprinter Kendall Kee is ranked eighth in the SEC.
“Kendall knows he’s No. 8 in the league, and he knows there are three guys on there that he should beat. He knows he can go win it all,” Frye said. “For our hurdlers, they know that the No. 1 and 2 guys were competing in the world championships last year. You don’t worry about the numbers or the times; that’s what we have to achieve.”
With such stiff competition gathering in College Station, Texas, the Gamecocks are expected to finish 10th this weekend.
“We need to exceed expectations. You never work with things you don’t have; you work with things we have,” Frye said. “We focus on how good are the people we are coaching now. Did they improve from last year? We are making sure the three stars are four stars and the kids that are no stars are competing like three stars. Let’s try to be better than we were yesterday.”
While the team competes against the best of the best, Frye believes a seventh-place finish will be a victory for the underdog Gamecocks.
“(A) Cinderella (team) may get to the finals in the SEC, but the favorite usually wins,” Frye said. “We can’t get discouraged because you expect to win it all. … Seventh, eighth and ninth place are phenomenal in this league.”
The event will kick off Thursday with the men’s 60 meters, and the competition will wrap up with an awards ceremony late Saturday afternoon.
Despite Frye’s acknowledgment that a low finish in a difficult SEC field takes nothing away from his team, he said he is hoping his Gamecocks can exceed the expectations that have been placed on them.
“Right now, we are excited about our runners, and we are looking forward to this weekend,” he said. “The expectation from the league is that South Carolina is going to be number 10 and 11. Low expectations lead to opportunity. That’s the goal. I really think we are there.”