Scheper receives first team All-America honors after NCAA championship
After ending the indoor season at the NCAA indoor championship last week, the South Carolina men’s and women’s track teams will begin the outdoor season in Myrtle Beach this weekend at the Shamrock Invitational hosted by Coastal Carolina.
Six members of the women’s team earned All-America honors after the lady Gamecocks finished tied for 19th place at the NCAA championship.
Senior Jeannelle Scheper was named a first team All-American for her second place finish in the high jump. Redshirt sophomore Sarah Graham was named a second team All-American after finishing 16th in the pentathlon. The women’s 4-x-400 relay team consisting of freshmen Precious Holmes, Marisa Bellamy and Briana Haith and sophomore Tyler Brockington received first-team recognition after finishing seventh.
Scheper was not satisfied with her second-place performances at the SEC and NCAA championships and hopes to move ahead from the indoor season and go for the win at the national outdoor championship.
“My placements were good from the outside looking in, but for me personally, those weren’t my best performances at NCAAs or SECs, so right now I’m just taking the time to refocus and figure out the small things that I need to fix to get back up and where I need to be for outdoors,” Scheper said.
Graham, after an impressive performance at her NCAA debut, will compete in the heptathlon in the outdoor season. She hopes to improve on her events across the board and end up back on the national stage in June.
“Going into outdoor, I’m definitely looking forward to getting back to nationals,” Graham said. “They throw in the 200 and the javelin, so I’ll switch to the hep(tathlon), throwing in two more events. I’m looking to get some personal records across the board, especially javelin, because it’s one of my weaker events.”
Moving up five spots to finish seventh at the NCAA championship, the young 4-x-400 quartet stepped up to become one of the top relay teams in the nation.
Head coach Curtis Frye said he will look to continue that success in the outdoor season.
“From the beginning of the season, I thought we’d be one of the top teams in the country. Their youth gives us a lot of promise. Watching them handle the SECs and then the NCAAs gives us a good building block going forward,” Frye said.
Going forward, the men’s team will look to rebound after a disappointing season that was plagued by injuries to some of the top performers on the team.
“Obviously once some of these guys come back and get healthy, we can be more competitive, but I think that our outdoor season will look much better for the men than the indoor season,” Frye said.