Final Results
GREENSBORO, N.C. – The Norfolk State men's track team captured its fourth consecutive Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference outdoor championship on Saturday at Irwin Belk Track on the campus of North Carolina A&T. In the process, the Spartans added to their own conference record by clinching the MEAC indoor-outdoor track sweep for a fourth straight school year.
NSU finished the meet with 133.5 points. Hampton was second with 104.
Spartan head coach Kenneth Giles was named the MEAC Men's Most Outstanding Coach for the 16th time in his tenure. Junior Marlon Woods (Norfolk, Va.) was named Men's Most Outstanding Performer for the third time in his career. He also won the award at this year's conference indoor meet as well as at last year's outdoor competition. Woods contributed to 27.25 points this weekend, winning the high jump, placing second in the long and triple jumps, and running the anchor leg on the fourth-place 4x100 meter relay.
“This really wasn't a good weekend for us compared to past championships,” Giles said. “We had some injuries to athletes that would have performed well had they been here this week. We also had some athletes who didn't quite fare as well as we expected, but we did have some younger athletes step up and exceed our expectations. All in all, we did what we came to do.”
The Spartans picked up Saturday where they left off Friday with two first-place finishes in the field events. Junior Brett Dodd (San Antonio, Texas) won the pole vault with a height of 4.40 meters (14-5.25). Corey Vinston (Hampton, Va.) matched his first-place finish in Friday's long jump with another victory in the triple jump. He leapt 15.06 meters (49 feet, 5 inches) to qualify for regionals. Woods took second and also qualified for regionals with a jump of 15.03 meters (49-3.75).
Freshman Darryl Thomas (Pittsburgh, Pa.) earned third place in the shot put with his season-best throw of 16.00 meters (52-6). Meredith Whitties (Petersburg, Va.) concluded a stellar meet for NSU's field athletes with a fourth-place showing in the javelin (50.91m, 167 feet).
The Spartans also fared well on the track Saturday. The 4x100 team of Woods, Thomas Speller (Chesapeake, Va.), Trayman Hill (Greensville County, Va.) and Quinten Walker (Hampton, Va.) placed fourth in 40.68 seconds, just missing the regional qualifying mark by .02 seconds.
Speller ran 21.14 seconds to earn fifth place in the 200 meters. Dominic Luka (Marietta, N.Y.) wrapped up his stellar Spartan career with a third-place finish in the 1,500 meters, and Josef Tessema(Springfield, Va.) came in fourth in the same event.
Jonathan Soimo (Kapsabet, Kenya) capped off the day by finishing third in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 9:50.29.
Woods (all three jumps), Vinston (long and triple jumps), Hill (200m) and Speller (200m) have all qualified for the NCAA East Regional, which will be contested May 29-30 and will also be hosted by N.C. A&T.
