Track and Field | 4/19/2019 5:08:00 PM
BEREA, Ky. Methodist University's men's and women's track & field teams each finished in third place in their respective championships at the 2019 USA South Athletic Conference Track & Field Championship hosted by Berea College on Thursday and Friday.
Piedmont College captured the league titles in both competitions, followed by Berea and Methodist on both sides of the ledger.
Five Monarch athletes earned individual titles during Friday's concluding event list.
First to climb to the top of the podium was senior
Erran Greene who edged out teammate
Jeremy Prichard in the men's 400-meter run. Greene posted a winning time of 48.79 seconds to out-lean Prichard by 2/100s of a second.
Soon after the two climbed down off their podium perch,
Jimlyn Laurent lined up at the end of the straightaway for the finals of the women's 100m dash. Laurent posted the fastest time (12.47 seconds) in Thursday's preliminary heats and lived up to her billing as the top seed Friday, breaking the personal record (PR) she had set the day before with a championship-winning sprint of 12.43 seconds.
The next event on the track gave Prichard another chance to claim a title, this time in the 400m hurdles. And this time he was the runner to take the tape, winning the event in a time of 54.87 seconds.
Both Laurent and Prichard almost added another win in the next event on the oval, the 200m dash.
Laurent finished second in the women's race with a time of 26.32, and Prichard finished second in the men's championship heat with a time of 22.41. Greene (22.78) also added points to the men's team total with a sixth-place finish.
From sprints to distance, the event order keyed up the women's 5,000m run next, and Methodist's
Makayla Lawler -- the individual champion Thursday in the 10,000m run -- added a second title to her championship trip, winning the 5,000 by six seconds over the runner-up, flashing a time of 18 minutes, 26.69 seconds on the scoreboard.
Away from the track in the field events it was
DJ Twitty that secured the last of the five individual titles for Methodist. Twitty set a new PR in the shot put, winning the event with his opening toss, of six, of 13.27 meters (43 feet-6 ½ inches). Teammate
Austin Boyles added a fourth-place heave of 11.75m (38-6 ¾) for more Monarch points.
Methodist came oh-so-close to adding to its title haul.
Vontre Howard reached a season best in the men's triple jump with his second-place leap of 13.35m (43-9 ¾);
Jake Patterson set a PR with his runner-up spin of 37.22m (122-1) in the men's discus; and the men's 4x400mn relay quartet of
Stephen Dukes, Greene,
Connor Ayers and Prichard finished second with a time of 3:25.26.
Along the way from the morning start through to the afternoon finish, more Monarchs posted season or personal bests:
- Chakalyn Patterson had a PR in the women's 400 with her 10th-place time of 1:04.53
- Dukes posted a PR (4:12.40) while finishing seventh in the men's 1,500
- Ayers recorded a new best time in the men's 5,000, clocking in at 16:12.74
- Three more relays recorded season best times:
For his efforts across the two championship days, Prichard was named the the USA South Track & Field Athlete of the Year. He compiled 42 points for the Monarch men with a first-place finish in the 400 hurdles and second-place finishes in the 200, 400, 110 hurdles and the high jump.
TEAM STANDINGS (Top 3)
Women
- Piedmont – 215
- Berea –152
- Methodist – 61
Men
- Piedmont – 170
- Berea – 144
- Methodist – 107
NEXT UP
For most of the Monarchs the season concludes with the conference meet. Several athletes, however, will attend Last Chance meets in hopes of bettering their standings on the national performance list before the qualifiers for the 2019 NCAA Division III Outdoor National Championship on May 23-25 in Geneva, Ohio, are announced.
