Heels took home 4 1st place ?nishes

Preparation for next week’s ACC Championships defined Saturday’s Gene Anderson Invitational.

The North Carolina track and field team competed with a small roster, approaching the meet as a way to work on specific goals as opposed to trying to win every event.

“It was serving as a (way for) either those athletes who are trying to state their case to make the ACC team or for those who just need a little tune up heading into ACC,” assistant head coach Josh Langley said.

The meet certainly allowed junior Jheranie Boyd to state his case. He was just added to the roster Friday but managed a second-place finish in the men’s 60-meter dash. A receiver on UNC’s football team, Boyd took last track season off but will still compete in the ACC Championships next weekend.

While winning wasn’t the team’s focus, UNC still came away with four first-place finishes.

Sophomore Sandi Morris used the meet to work on her technique and gain confidence for next weekend. In refining her technique, she set a school record for the indoor women’s pole vault, clearing 13-10 ½ inches to win the event.

“I had been jumping well, but I needed the mental confidence of clearing a good height,” she said. “Preparing for a track meet, a lot of it’s just mental, so this is the mental confidence I needed.”

Senior Parker Smith took second in the men’s pole vault and set a personal record by clearing 17-7 ¾ inches.

“Last week was my first week back coming off an injury and it didn’t go as well as I would have liked,” Smith said. “So going into ACC’s next week, it felt really good to come out and jump well today.”

Smith finished second in the pole vault in the ACC indoor championships last year, and will likely be the top seed next week.

“I don’t know if I’m crazy about having that target on my back, but really I don’t think it matters,” Smith said. “I’m not going to do anything different, and I’m going to go in there and act like I have something to prove. Everything is in my hands so (I need to) just go take care of business.”

Kwabena Keene and Chris DiLorenzo took first and second in men’s shot put, throwing 55-7 ½ inches and 55-3 ¾ inches respectively.

Senior Kendra Schaaf blew the field away in the women’s 3,000-meters, finishing more than 30 seconds earlier than the second-place finisher and fellow Tar Heel, sophomore Malia Cali.

Rounding out the first place finishes for UNC was Tristine Johnson, whose 40-foot mark won the triple jump.

With the ACC Championships now less than a week away, the Tar Heels will focus on resting and making minor adjustments.

“The hay is in the barn,” Langley said. “The conditioning is done. It’s just working on one or two technical things that we’ve been working on the last few weeks.”

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