It is still very early on, but the Rowan men’s track and field team seems poised for a big season as they approach their toughest stretch of the season.
Last weekend on March 30 — April 1 the team dominated at the Danny Curran Invitational. One of the best performances of the competition was junior Nana Agyemang’s performance in the long jump.
Agyemang, who qualified for the NCAA Division III Championships in 2021 for long jump, turned in his personal second-best performance after hitting a mark of 7.46 meters during the invitational, which was good enough for first place and a top-five mark in Division III.
“It’s exciting,” Agyemang said. “I don’t really look too much into it anymore because a lot can change between now and nationals but it’s a good benchmark to put me out there and it takes a little bit of stress off my shoulders.”
Head Coach Dustin Dimit shared his excitement as he knows that bigger things are coming soon for Agyemang and the rest of his squad.
“It’s exciting because we know what kind of training we’re doing now and the fact that we’re already hitting those types of marks just means that we should be doing even better later on,” Dimit said. “It just gets us excited for what’s coming up ahead.”
Coming up is the Profs’ toughest competition of the season, starting with the Oscar Moore invitational which Coach Dimit thinks will help his team be more prepared for the meat of their schedule.
“It’s just good for our guys to see that level of competition,” Dimit said. “It’s gonna be a pretty small meet, there’s not gonna be a ton of teams here but with some of that top-level competition, that should get us pushed and help us feel prepared for the meets coming up that are all D I competition.”
Following the Oscar Moore Invitational, the team will head to Princeton University for the Larry Ellis Invitational and then head down to South Carolina for the USC Open. Following that will be the Penn Relays, which is the largest track and field competition in the country.
The big performances early on this season have brought excitement to the team and a lot of hope for what they can do at these upcoming meets.
“It makes me very excited,” Agyemang said. “Just knowing that we’re gonna get better from here, we’re gonna get looser, we’re gonna have some more fun and we’re gonna get into our strides. I’m excited to see what we all can do.”
Winning is fun, and right now these Profs are having fun. They are running events that are not usual for them and it is paying off. Just last weekend, senior Jah’mere Beasley won the 400 meter with a personal best time of 47.86 and junior Amara Conte ran a personal best in the 800 with a time of 1:54.17.
“These are things they are asking to do,” Dimit said. “They don’t want to run their same events over and over again. They want to do the things that are going to make them better for later in the year. They see that an over-distance thing helps strengthen them… We’ll play around with some things, keep it fun and prepare for the big meets.”
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