BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The New Orleans Privateers track and field squad continues to get strong performances from freshmen as they capped off the Samford Invitational over the last two days, including a record-breaking performance in the third meet of the 2014 indoor season.
Freshman, Darius Roy continues to impact the track as he clocked a 21.88 in the men's 200-meter. Roy wound up placing sixth. Roy fell just .14 seconds off his personal best for the 2014 indoor season. Roy along with Constant Pretorius have garnered praise from Coach Mike Erb for their efforts this season.
"Darius continues to impress in both the 60 and the 200 and it was great to see Constant start to find his rhythm again in the 200 and 400."
Freshman, Markus Lemeet competed in the men's heptathlon, and though he had a couple of top three finishes in individual events, but was banged up and could not compete in the second day as a result. Lemeet finished third in the 60-meter dash, which opened the seven-discipline event and clocked a 7.14 which was .21 seconds off the fastest time.
In the shot put, Lemeet again turned in a top-three finish by throwing a distance of 12.78 meters. "Markus wasn't feeling 100 percent after day one of the heptathlon, so we decided to save his best effort for the conference championship," said Erb.
Another pair of freshmen, Sofia Johnsson and Farydah Inoussa competed in the women's pentathlon and finished sixth and seventh respectively. Johnsson also set the school record for points in the pentathlon with 3,543. Highlighting Johnsson's overall performance was a pair of third place finishes in the 800-meter and the 60-meter hurdles. Said Erb,"I thought that both Sofia and Farydah did great in their first collegiate combined event. They handled themselves very well against much more experienced competition." Inoussa finished fourth in the long jump and third in the shot put.
The Privateers will be back on the track again in two weeks when they take part in the LSU Twilight Invitational on Feb. 21.