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Coppin State Recap | North Carolina A&T State Recap
AUSTIN, Texas, June 5, 2019—Coppin State’s Joseph Amoah qualified for the finals in two events at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Wednesday at Mike A. Myers Stadium, while North Carolina A&T State’s Trevor Stewart and Michael Dickson will also run for national titles.
The Aggies will also look for NCAA gold in two relay races.
The men’s 100-meter semifinals saw incredibly fast speeds, and Amoah – who two weeks ago in the NCAA East Preliminary had set a personal best at 10.10 – bettered that with a 10.01 in his heat to post the sixth-fastest time overall and qualify for Friday’s final.
Demek Kemp of South Carolina State (who tied his school record and this year’s MEAC-best time with a 10.03) and North Carolina A&T State’s Rodney Rowe (10.06) did not advance.
Amoah also qualified for the final in the men’s 200, as his MEAC season-best 20.08 was the third-fastest time overall, giving him a shot at two NCAA titles on Friday.
Rowe was 13th with a 20.47 and did not advance.
Stewart won his heat race in the men’s 400-meter semifinals, running a 44.84 – the second-fastest time overall – to advance to Friday’s championship final. His mark was just .04 seconds off the fast time set by Houston’s Khamari Montgomery.
North Carolina A&T State’s first individual finalist came in the men’s 110-meter hurdles, where Dickson qualified for Friday’s final after turning in a 13.54 – third in his heat and eighth overall. That time is not only the conference’s best this season, but it also breaks the conference record by .03 seconds.
The afternoon opened with the men’s 4x100-meter relay, in which the Aggies ran a season-best 39.00 to post the eighth-fastest time overall (finishing third in their heat) and qualify for Friday’s championship final.
Coppin State was 14th in 39.30 and missed qualifying for the final.
North Carolina A&T State also had a strong run in the semifinals of the 4x400-meter relay, turning in a MEAC-record 3:02.45, finishing third in their heat race, just behind Texas A&M and Iowa. That was the seventh-fastest time overall, and the Aggies will run for the national title in the event on Friday.
Savannah State’s Abbas Abbkar ran a 1:51.88 in the men’s 800 meters, posting the 21st-fastest time.
Akeem Lindo of North Carolina A&T State ran a season- and MEAC-best 50.38 in the 400 hurdles, but he did not qualify for the final as that was the 10th-fastest time of the day.
Thursday’s action will get underway with the women’s 4x100-meter relay at 8:02 p.m. EST. Defending 200-meter NCAA indoor champion Kayla White will also run in the 100 (9:16 p.m. EST) and 200 (10:13 p.m. EST) semifinal races. ESPNU will have coverage starting at 8 p.m. EST, with ESPN2 taking over at 9 p.m. EST.
White will lead a contingent of five Aggies in action on Thursday -- including Cambrea Sturgis (100 and 200 meters), Tori Ray (400 meters), Madeleine Akobundu (100 hurdles) and Kamaya Debose-Epps (200 meters).
Other MEAC athletes in action on Thursday include Norfolk State's Martha Bissah (800 meters) and Kiara Grant (100 meters), as well as Bethune-Cookman's Monae Nichols in the long jump.