NORFOLK, Va. -- The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) will be well-represented in the 2014 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which begin Wednesday and run through Saturday at Haywood Field in Eugene, Ore., with a pursuit of a national championship and All-America honors.
“From a conference standpoint, we all should do well,’’ says Hampton coach Maurice Pierce, adding that the number of athletes from the MEAC who qualified for the NCAA Championships reaffirms the conference’s status as one of the top track leagues in the country. “Everybody has the ability to make finals. When you do that, it says a lot about the conference. It says you’re one of the best in America.’’
Hampton has eight athletes among the MEAC’s contingent, led by the Pirates’ 4x400 meter men’s relay team of Je’Von Hutchinson, Chidi Okezie, Paris Reddick-Simmons and Edose Ibadin. Hutchinson will also compete in the 400 meters. Other Hampton athletes who qualified for NCAA Championships are hurdler Trey Holloway and javelin thrower Stefano Nardini on the men’s side. Ce’aira Brown and Le’Quisha Parker, who will compete in the 800 meters and 200 meters, respectively, on the women’s side.
The Hampton contingent is joined by hurdler Tremayne Banks and long jumper Kenneth Fisher, who led Bethune-Cookman to the 2014 MEAC men’s outdoor championship; North Carolina A&T sprinter Desmond Lawrence; sprinters Gayon Evans of Maryland Eastern Shore and Trisitie Johnson of Bethune-Cookman and Coppin State triple jumper Christina Epps on the women’s side..
Banks had a personal best of 13.68 in the 110 meter hurdles and was fourth in regional qualifying. Fisher, a freshman, was ninth in the long jump with a leap of 7.54 meters. Johnson was fifth in the 100 meters with a time of 11:32, narrowly missing her season-best time, and seventh in the 200 meters, with a time of 23:47. Evans’ presence in the field extends Maryland Eastern Shore’s streak of having an athlete in the NCAA Championships to five consecutive years.
Lawrence ran a personal best 10:22 in the NCAA East Preliminary and is ranked 15th in the 100 meters.
“My expectation going into the 100 is to make it to the finals,” said Lawrence. “Then I would have the opportunity to compete for a national championship, which I believe I have an opportunity to place. If my times keep dropping, I can become an All-American.”
Lawrence is seeded fifth in the race. If he makes it to the final he will be the first ever A&T first-team All-American in the 100 meters. If he wins, he will be the school’s first ever national champion.
Epps, told that she would never be able to compete at the same level after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee a little more than two years, is looking to repeat her All-American performance from the indoor season.
“I am going into this meet confident and focused,” Epps said. “I am putting my faith in God and his timing and everything will happen when it needs to happen. I am going to do my best and perform to the best of my abilities. I know there are some bigger jumps in there and I am excited to see what happens.”
Epps’ determination and will to succeed is one reason why she enters Friday’s triple jump championship as one of the favorites to win the event. She is ranked fourth out of 24 competitors, who qualified for the final NCAA meet of the season. She leaped a career best 13.40 meters (43 feet, 11.75 inches) in finishing third last weekend at the NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Preliminary Championships at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida.
Brown had the second-fastest time in the women’s 800 meters at the NCAA East Preliminary with a Hampton University record 2:03.76. Parker was seventh in the women’s 200 meters after running 23.46 in the semifinals and 23.42 in the preliminary heats. Holloway, a sophomore, is competing in the NCAA Championships. He had a season-best 13.74 to post the eighth-fastest time in the 110-meter hurdles semifinal round of the NCAA East Preliminary. Nardini holds the Hampton school record in the javelin with a throw of 72.01 meters. He had the ninth-best distance at NCAA East Preliminary with a distance of 68.40.
Hampton’s 4x400 relay team is coming of a record-setting performance in the NCAA East Preliminary. The Pirates turned in a 3:05.21 to break the record which stood for 13 years. Pierce says he thinks Pirates are capable of shaving .001 off their record-setting time.
“I think they’ve hit their stride,’’ he said. “But I don’t think they’ve run as fast as they can run. They were put in the position (at the NCAA East Preliminary) of they had to get it done or miss out on a chance to go to the National Championships. They came together and finally got it done. You can’t go to the National Championships and just be happy to be there. They have to go there knowing they can run faster and (that they have) the capability to run faster. ‘’
Three of the four members of the Hampton relay team – (Hutchinson, Okezie and Ibadin) have run together and competed in the NCAA Championships two years ago. Pierce says their familiarity with each other gives the team an edge.
“They know each other,’’ Pierce said. “They know each others’ capabilities.’’
However, newcomer Reddick-Simmons, a graduate student who set the MEAC record in the 800 meters while attending North Carolina A&T, has been the key to the Pirates’ success.
“He’s the glue to it because he goes hard every time he gets the baton,’’ Pierce says.
Hampton’s success has come despite – or perhaps because of – the unconventional approach Pierce has taken to using his runners. Hutchinson, the Pirates’ best 400-meter man, runs the lead-off leg; Okezie, No. 2 on the team in the 400, runs the second leg, followed by Reddick-Simmons and Ibadin in that order.
“It’s kind of unorthodox the way we run it, and it’s not normal because we have our best 400 runner running first instead of anchor,’’ Pierce said, “and then we come right back with our second best quarter-miler.. We should mix it up and put them in different places. But I’ve found that it works best that way, so we keep running it that way.’’
There is a method to Pierce’s madness.
“Two out of the four guys are 800 meter runners (Reddick-Simmons and Ibadin),’’ Pierce said. “So you can’t really expect them to come out of the blocks and be comfortable. You have to get them from a running start. Okezie is a 200-meter runner so you want to save his legs and use his advantage. We need to get him off a running start, so we decided to take our best guy (Hutchinson), who was most comfortable coming off the blocks and can run a flat 400 in 45 seconds. It was just a matter of putting everybody in position to get ahead of the clock instead of being in position where we have to chase every leg. So far it has worked out.’’