COLUMBIA, S.C. - In a one day trip to the University of South Carolina, David Needs' program competed in its final meet prior to the South Atlantic Conference Indoor Championships at the USC Indoor Open on Saturday, Feb. 16 at the Carolina Indoor Track & Field Complex.
Carson-Newman will head to Winston Salem, N.C. next week on Feb. 23-24 for the league championships at the JDL Fast Track.
The meet on Saturday included a handful of athletes from various schools in the area with a number of Division I talent in attendance along with SAC foes Coker, Mars Hills, Queens and Tusculum.
"It's definitely a new experience being over there for the first time," said Needs. "I thought we did really well with the competition. You can see their training coming together and it was good to see us improve on our league times.
"We've talked about the multiple purposes moving forward with your placements for conference and trying to go to nationals. You have to be proud of these kids after going against that competition after a week off and being able to perform. We gutted it out today and that's what we like to see and now we really have to make it shine next week. To be at a meet with SEC schools, D1, very good D2 schools, including some professionals,, I mean there were world records that we nearly broken. There's probably eight or nine today that ran in the olympics and we held our own."
Amanda Lowe tied for eighth in the Southeast Region in the 60-meter dash preliminary race turning in a time of 7.80 seconds. The sophomore finished third out of all Division II runners who competed and 19th overall. Lowe earned a new personal-best time by .15 seconds. Davis turned in a fifth-place time at 7.89 seconds.
Amy Zadroga finished in fifth in the pole vault after clearing 3.20 meters on her first attempt. The sophomore had the highest finish of any Division II competitor in the event. Zadroga remains at No. 5 in the region after a previous season-best clearance of 3.25-meters.
Senior Samantha Gudger finished first out of all D2 competitors and sixth overall in the long jump clearing 5.55 meters. The Bristol, Tenn. product topped a new season-best mark which previous sat at 5.50. The distance pushes Gudger to fourth in the region at current standing.
Two Eagles on the men's side turned in top-10 marks in the region with Jahvad McDermott leading the way with a leap of 7.01 meters which rounded out the top-five. Ray Artybridge cleared 6.97 meters which sat him in 11th overall in the competition and No. 7 in the Southeast. Kristofer Potts-Howard followed up in 12th overall after jumping 6.95 meters. He already holds the third-best mark in the region at 7.09 meters.
Sophomore Devon Moore was the top finisher out of all D2 runners in the 60-meter dash prelim race finishing with a time of 6.79 seconds and fourth overall, a time which keeps him at third in the region despite owning a new season-low time which was previously 6.84 seconds. Moore finished sixth in the finals with a time of 6.83.
James Wilson turned in the top mark out of D2 competitors in the triple jump which included a fifth overall finish after clearing 14.30 meters. He remains at No. 4 in the region after a jump of 14.72 earlier this season.
Jahvad McDermott finished second for the Eagles in the high jump after clearing 1.98 meters on his first attempt before missing out on 2.03.
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