LYNCHBURG, Va. – Four more first-place finishes highlight Carson-Newman's trip to the 2025 Liberty Open.
The accolades keep rolling in for Carson-Newman Track and Field earning four more first-place finishes and more podium finishes at the Liberty Open.
Colton Lee (Knoxville, Tenn.) paced the Eagles on Day One with a first-place finish in the men's 5000m, and just missed out on the top of the podium by less than a second in the men's mile failing to catch Daniel O'Neill representing the American Conference.
Peyton Couch (Morristown, Tenn.) counterparted Lee's performance with a top-ten finish in the women's 5000m.
Sade De Sousa (Namibia) did Sade De Sousa things by qualifying for the women's 60m final with the second-best preliminary time on Friday, then won the entire event on Saturday in the event's final. In a photo finish De Sousa narrowly edged out North Carolina A&T's Jada Griffin by a one-hundredth of a second who was running unattached. De Sousa also avenged her loss two weeks ago to Tusculum's Jahzara Hart who placed fourth in the final heat.
Elsewhere on the track for the Eagles, Jeremiah Carroll (Atlanta, Ga.) earned a top eight time in the 60m hurdles to qualify for Saturday's final where he jumped up one spot to finish seventh in the event.
Favour Ekpekpe (Nigeria) earned a sixth-place finish in the men's 200m with a time of 21.57, a new personal best at Carson-Newman.
In the 400m, both the men and women saw top ten finishes with the male's Rylan Jordan (Johnson City, Tenn.) placing tenth with a 49.65, and the female's Tytiana Wilson (St. Petersburg, Fla.) placing sixth with a 57.56.
In the field events, the Eagles bag two more first-place finishes in the men's triple jump and the men's high jump.
In the triple jump, Cincinnati transfer Carlos Kouassi (Basel, Switzerland) earned his first victory as an Eagle with a distance of 14.66m beating out the next closest competitor, Mars Hill's Jared Benain.
Verrol Sam earned his first high jump first-place finish of the season tying for first with three Division I competitors. Campbell's Lamont Victoria and Kaleb Johnson as well as Marshall's Evan Weder, all of whom cleared a height of 2.01m. C-N's Oluwafemi Richards also placed in the top ten in the sixth event, with a cleared height of 2.01 with more attempts needed to clear the final height.
Sam's signature event, the long jump, saw a third-place finish with a distance of 7.08m, the highest finish from a Division II athlete falling to just Liberty's Markus White and Charlotte's Amir El Amin.
In the women's long jump, three Eagles found themselves in the top 12 including a fifth-place finish from Sydney McCarty (Sevierville, Tenn.), a ninth-place finish from Brooke Taylor (Knoxville, Tenn.), and a 12th-place finish from Brooke Visser who each found distances of 5.79m, 5.55m, and 5.51m respectively.
Kendall Whitehead (Maryville, Tenn.) earned a bronze finish in the women's high jump clearing a height of 1.50m, earning the highest finish by a Division II competitor as the next highest from DII came in eighth with multiple finishers tying for the spot.
Carson-Newman Track and Field gets back in action next Friday and Saturday, February 14 and 15 in Nashville, Tenn. at the Indoor Music City Challenge at the Vanderbilt University Multipurpose Facility.
To keep up to date with Carson-Newman Track and Field follow us on social media @CN_Eagles on X and Instagram or Facebook at Carson-Newman Athletics. You can also log online to cneagles.com for team rosters, schedules, news, and more.
