Needs' program prepares for final meet before SAC Championships
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - In their final tune-up prior to the South Atlantic Conference Indoor Championships, Carson-Newman makes the trip to Columbia, S.C. for the University of South Carolina Open on Saturday, Feb. 16 at the Carolina Indoor Track & Field Complex.
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. - In their final tune-up prior to the South Atlantic Conference Indoor Championships, Carson-Newman makes the trip to Columbia, S.C. for the University of South Carolina Open on Saturday, Feb. 16 at the Carolina Indoor Track & Field Complex.
Events are slated to begin at 9:00 a.m. with the men's 3000-meter run and the women's high jump.
"You're always looking for meets that you can get into and go and make sure you satisfied team requirements," said Coach David Needs. "We were looking for a meet where we could take a couple of our athletes and maybe help their conference position. The conference meet last year was this coming week but we pushed it a week later for the betterment of our athletes. We wanted to have a meet and didn't want to have them off two weeks in a row. Some of our athletes are also trying to help their national position so going to this brand new facility should be a great opportunity for them."
The Eagles last competed on Feb. 1-2 at East Tennessee State University for the Buccaneer Invitational at the David E. Walker Track at Gentry Field. Fighting through some injuries, C-N still came away with some high end performances including Luke Greer's dominant run in the 3000-meter race.
Luke Greer broke an ETSU meet record in the event to close out the final day for the program with a time of 8:28.27. The previous record was held by a league foe in Anderson who Greer beat by two seconds. Greer lapped two runners with still two laps remaining in the race, and lapped a third in the final lap. The next closest runner came in at 8:44.47 followed by the third-place time of 8:52.42.
Klara Naude won the 800-meter run for the Eagles with a time of 2:34.68, a new personal best time over that same weekend.
Other notables from that weekend included a school record as freshman Rachel Strayer topped the one mile run by over seven seconds with a time of 5:32.05, a record that stood since 2016 when Hannah Green ran it in 5:39.71. Six other Eagles also notched personal-low times throughout the day.
The aforementioned SAC Indoor Championships are slated to take place next weekend on Feb. 23 and 24 from the JDL Fast Track in Winston Salem, N.C. It's just the second competition for the league after its inaugural indoor season in 2017-18.
"Any time you can go against an SEC school in compeition, you're going to be in great shape, " Needs said. "You want to be mindful of being a conference champion but you want to also go to nationals so if there is a weekend to take advantage of that, it's on Saturday."
In the latest NCAA regional rankings, the C-N men hold the No. 5 position.
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