LEXINGTON, Va. – Carson-Newman Track and Field showed out with three first-place finishes and two new school records at the VMI Invitational.
Highlighted by two program records, the men's 60 meters from Andre Morrison and the men's shotput from Oluwatimi Williams, the Eagles soared against talent from every level of competition.
Morrison set not only a program record for the 60m but also a facility record for the VMI Corps Physical Training Facility. With a 6.63, he set the second-best Division II time this season and earned the top qualifying position in the 60m finals. The time broke Devon Moore's record from 2020 by six one-hundredths of a second.
Unfortunately, Carson-Newman Track and Field head coach Kieran Showler-Davis pulled Morrison from the final after learning of tightness in Morrison's calf.
Williams broke Luke Smith's shot put school record set at the 2023 LR Bears Open. He cleared Smith's record by .23 meters to set a new record of 15.37 meters, placing fourth in the event.
Carson-Newman took home first-place finishes in the men's 60-meter hurdles, men's high jump, and women's long jump.
Two-sport athlete Jeremiah Carroll took home his first golden finish of the season by setting a new personal record in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.22, beating the next closest finisher by a full tenth of a second.
In the men's high jump, Oluwafemi Richards took home first place, clearing a height of 2.00m, tying with Askew of USC Upstate for the best performance at the meet, and was the lone athlete below Division I to clear the height. The mark is 0.12m better than his performance last weekend at the Finn Pincus Invitational.
The final Eagle to stand at the top of the podium was Sydney McCarty, who won the women's long jump with a distance of 5.63m. C-N showed well in the event as Brooke Taylor and Brooke Visser placed in the top ten.
Other notable Eagle results included the women's 60 meters. Sade De Sousa qualified as third in both the preliminaries and semifinals and rose to find a silver finish in the 60m final, only losing out on the top spot by one-hundredth of a second.
Other silver-clad Eagles included Cincinnati transfer Carlos Kouassi, who specializes in the triple jump. Kouassi marked a distance of 15.00m in his first event as an Eagle. Colton Lee also finished second in the men's 3000 meters, just a half second behind Milligan's first-place finisher.
Favour Ekpekpe made his C-N debut in the 200 meters, finishing in 21.72. He picked up a runner-up finish just five one-hundredths of a second behind the winner of the event from Mount Olive.
Rounding out the top-ten finishes for the orange and blue, Addisen Petersen finished ninth in women's pole vault, clearing 2.75m.
Both distance medley teams took home top-five finishes, with the men finishing in third with a 10:32.76 mark that is fifth in Division II this season, while the women finished fifth with a 13:03.52 that marks the tenth fastest DII relay nationally.
Carson-Newman Track and Field returns to action on February 8 in a split-squad weekend, with part of the team returning to Lexington for the VMI Winter Classic while the other part travels to Indianapolis for the Fairgrounds Invitational at the Indiana State Fairgrounds Fall Creek Pavilion.
