North Carolina track team takes home 7 victories at UNC Invitational

Most teams are used to competing as a whole, at the same time and in the same place. But in track and field, that is not always the case.

With all but the throwers from the North Carolina men’s track and field team away at the Navy Wesley A. Brown Invitational in Annapolis, Md., the rest of the Tar Heels stayed home Friday and Saturday to compete against eight local schools in the two-day UNC Invitational.

Senior Elizabeth Mott led the way for the Tar Heels, taking first in the women’s 400-meter and 200-meter and was a member of the winning 4-by-400 relay team.

UNC rounded out the weekend with seven victories in total.

Senior Danielle Brock achieved the only win for the Tar Heels in the first day’s events, finishing the women’s 60-meter hurdles in a time of 8.52 seconds.

In spite of a narrower field of competition compared to UNC’s home meet earlier this month, Brock said she approaches the smaller meets with the same mindset and concentration.

“When it is a bigger meet, you think, ‘OK, it’s a bigger stage.’ You have to prepare harder,” she said. “But at the same time, when it is a smaller meet, you still have to have that same mentality.”
Also on the track, Marisa Dobbins won the women’s 800 meter with a time of 2:13.55.

In field events, Sandi Morris cleared 13 feet, 7 1/4 inches, good for the seventh best height in the NCAA this year. Tristine Johnson’s 39 feet, 11 1/4 inch leap in the triple jump gave her a victory as well.

Chris DiLorenzo and Kwabena Keene took second and third place, respectively, in the men’s shot put with throws of 55-feet, 5 inches and 54 feet, 6 3/4 inches.

The meet was Keene’s first official competition since redshirting the 2011 season and having wrist surgery in early December.

“I feel pretty confident,” he said. “My body feels pretty good, so I’m pretty optimistic about the season.”

Like Brock, Keene also said that having part of the team travel to an away meet does little to change how he prepares for the meet because UNC was up against Duke, Wake Forest and N.C. State.

“For us, the big meet here was at home,” he said. “We had better competitors here than at Navy.”

Assistant head coach Josh Langley said his team does not use a different approach for a weekend with home and away meets, but that there are benefits to splitting up the team.

“It’s definitely a different atmosphere when a majority of the guys team is somewhere else and the women are here,” Langley said.

“I think that allows the men’s team to focus on themselves as a team and the women’s team to do the same here. It makes it more team-oriented.”

Langley also said that going up against other ACC teams provides valuable experience for the championships later in the season.

“It’s always good to look in the lane next to you or see the person throwing before you or vaulting before you and they’re in an ACC team uniform. It gives you a little more sense of purpose.”

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