WINSTON-SALEM (February 4, 2017) – The Camel City Invitational was good to the North Carolina A&T men's and women's indoor track and field teams over the weekend. Sophomore Michael Dickson especially benefited by performing well enough to once again find himself No. 1 in the nation in the 60-meter hurdles.
On day two of the meet, Dickson won the event with a first-place sprint of 7.63. That time not only toppled his old personal record and A&T school record of 7.74, but it also defeated the previous collegiate facility record for the JDL Fast Track. Before Dickson, the title was held by South Carolina's Dondre Echols at 7.74.
“Mike is a special kid and he's a special athlete,” said the director of track and field programs Duane Ross. “You can never count him out.”
The Camel City Invitational only marked Dickson's second competition as he sat out the majority of the indoor meets to recover from a hamstring injury. Yet Dickson is a key factor in the men's second-place national ranking in the 60mh as he finds himself tied at No. 1 in the nation Florida freshman Grant Holloway.
Aggie Freshman Robert Miller also had a good day in the 60mh. Miller PR'ed with an 8.05 in the 60mh preliminaries to qualify seventh. Miller then finished seventh in the finals in 8.08.
Interestingly enough, the Aggies went nostalgic in the 60 meters. Current Aggie, junior Joel Thomas was joined by 2015 Aggie graduate and two-time All-American Desmond Lawrence who ran unattached. Lawrence still holds the A&T record (6.60) as well as the MEAC record (6.64) in the 60m. In both the prelims and finals, Lawrence narrowly beat Thomas as they took respective first and second place finishes in both races. Thomas sprinted 6.75 during the prelims before running a PR of 6.73 in the finals. His previous PR was 6.78 from the Virginia Tech Invitational.
“It feels good to see another product of our track and field program continuing to do well,” said Ross about Lawrence. “I told Joel 'don't worry about it. That's just like running against one of your other teammates. He's a product of ours too.'”
The men had three other top-10 performances at Camel City on Day 2 including third-places finishes by junior Dajuan Harding in the 200m (22.22) and sophomore Lasheon Strozier in the triple jump (48-feet, 8-inches). Also in the field, sophomore Derrick Wheeler threw a distance of 47-feet, 5 ¼-inches in the shot to place eighth.
The women also had a good day at Camel City. Junior India Brown (7.49) and sophomore Yakira Love (7.61) qualified second and fifth in the 60m prelims. Brown would remain in second during the finals with a 7.48 sprint, faltering only to unattached Breana Norman, while Love finished fourth in 7.59.
In the 60mh, however, most of the ladies did better in the prelims than the finals. Sophomore Kayla White, who was has also been recovering from injury the majority of the season, qualified first in the event in 8.33, but finished sixth in the final at 8.64.
Junior Morgan Knight took third in the prelims (8.42) and final (8.55). Likely accounting for Knight's finals performance, however, is the fact that she also debuted in the pole vault which was concurrent with the 60mh. Knight placed sixth in the pole vault with an elevation of 11-feet, 3 ¾-inches.
Freshman Madeline Akobundu was the only other Aggie in the women's 60mh. Akobundu qualified sixth in 8.63 before giving a PR run of 8.58 in the finals to place fourth. “We're running fast when we need to,” said Ross. “With conference being a few weeks out this is what we need to see from our athletes.”
