Underclassmen lead Troy in Birmingham

The Troy track and field teams wrapped up their indoor season over the weekend with a strong showing in the Samford Open in Birmingham.

The Trojans cruised through the regular-season finale in what Head Coach Marc Davis called a “final tuneup” before the Sun Belt Championships this Monday and Tuesday. With the conference championships fast approaching, Davis opted to rest those with a heavy event load.

“We are scaling back the competition load for everyone so we can really start to sharpen up,” Davis said. “I feel like we are in a pretty good place. As I have stated all season, we have a very young team, so everyone is still learning from week to week. We are excited to see what happens over the next couple of weeks.”

The preservation of many of the upperclassmen standouts allowed many younger runners to find themselves in the spotlight. Underclassmen contributed several top-five finishes, highlighted by A’Kasia Frazier’s and Alexis Garrett’s performances in the 60-meter hurdles. Frazier finished with a time of nine seconds flat in the finals, while Garrett clocked in at 9.12 seconds.

One upperclassman who did compete was Troy’s Niata Alexander, who recorded a second-place finish in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.59 seconds.

The Trojans also saw top-five finishes in the field events as Indiya Summerville and Allison Taylor captured fourth-place finishes in the shot put and weight throw, respectively.

With the regular season now in the books, the Trojans look to send a host of players to the Sun Belt Indoor Championships. The two-day meet will be hosted at the Birmingham CrossPlex, which is familiar territory for a Troy team that has competed there four times this season.

While many competitors look forward to the finale of the indoor season, the outdoor season is just around the corner. The University of South Alabama will host the Jaguar Invitational to kick off the outdoor season on March 3 in Mobile.