Jaguar men run away with SWAC Outdoor Track & Field title

SHREVEPORT, La. – Southern University men track and field team triumphed for the second time this year winning the 2002 Southwestern Athletic Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships, at Caddo Parish Stadium, in Shreveport from May 2-5.
The Jaguars won the SWAC Indoor title earlier this year.
Coaching his men to another win over the nine other completing SWAC teams, Southern University head track & field coach Johnny Thomas was named the SWAC’s Track Coach of the Year for a second time this year.
“The name of the game in SWAC championship is getting qualifying numbers and getting numbers into the finals and not just any numbers but getting quality numbers into the finals” said Thomas.
The Jaguars completed vigorously scoring 227.2 points and overpowering the second place winning team Alcorn State by 90.9 points, who is coached by Southern graduate Alecia Shields-Gadson. Alcorn scored 136 points.
The distance runners started the fight to the win lead by distance runner Charles Moon in the first event for the men Moon placed third in the 3,000 meter run.
Murray Guillory and Moon placed fifth and sixth in the race of 25 laps in the 10,000-meter run, which held the crowd attention to the very end of the race. In the 5,000 meter run Moon place fourth and in the 1500 meter run Moon came in first running the time of 4 minutes 09.04 seconds following behind him was Guillary placing fourth. In the 800 meter run Guillory placed fourth and Clary Reed placed second.
” What also help us was that we got an excellent performance out of our middle distance runners and our sprinters really came through for us,” said Thomas.
The sprinters held down their part filling in no least than two spots in the finals.
” I felt the we should have had better time in 200, 100 and 4×100 relay because we were prime for good time and capable of running better time,” said Thomas.
In the 100 meter dash SU men went one, two and three Brain Johnson running a time of 10.46 seconds, Adrian Williams who ran a 10.66 and Noel Parnell placed third with the time of 10.72. In the 200 meter run Devin Daniels place third running 21.29 Williams place fifth and Johnson sixth in the event. In the 400 meter Kevin Harris placed second clocking in a 47.09 and Leon Stewart place fifth. Hurdler Jamie McLendon placed second in the 110 Hurdles running 14.07 time and in the 400 hurdles Jamie placed fifth and Che’ Kamani came in fourth. In the field events southern ran away with several first places titles.
” I am just glad to be a part of the SWAC Championship even though I did not do good in my mean event I bounced back in the 100 and 200 now I just looking forward to nationals,” said Brian Johnson holder of the longest long in the national this year.
Unexpectedly the long jump was not one of those events with Brian Johnson fouled three times in the preliminary and did not make it to finals in this event. Johnson currently is the nations leading long jumper and had qualified for the NCAA Championships.
Jeremy Pierre won the triple jump with 50-41/2 jump amazing the coward with the height of his jump. Also placing in this event was Johnson placing fifth and Gregory Corbette placing sixth.
“I was not happy with our out coming. My goal to was to PR in my event and as a team we want to back the record for the most points scored in a Outdoor SWAC Championship and we were not able to because we off to a bad start,” said Nicholas Wilson.
Wilson won the pole vault jumping to height of 12-6.
Glynn Mangum placed first in javelin throwing 185-0 coming in second was Thomas Ricks and Wilson placed fifth. In the high jump Michael McKinney did well placing second jumping 6-06.75 he was still not able to get back to the height that he was jumping in the beginning of the season.
Placing second and third in the hammer throw was Austin Mumphrey and Arnold Sims. The relays teams in the 4×100 ran by Noel Parnell, Devin Daniels, Adrian Williams and Brian Johnson placed first running a time of 39.80 NCAA provisional qualifying time for nationals. The 4×400 relay did not do as well placing fourth in the relay.
With several men qualifying automatically and provisionally for the NCAA Championships, the SU men will be competing May 29-June 1 at the NCAA Championships that will be held at Louisiana State University.