Coastal Carolina University
Alan Connie Shamrock Invitational
Chanticleers Ready for Alan Connie Shamrock Invitational
3/18/2021 1:01:00 PM | Track & Field/Cross Country
Former Chant Coach Alan Connie will be honored on Saturday morning
CONWAY, S.C. – The Coastal Carolina outdoor track and field team will be in action this weekend, March 19-20, part of the Alan Connie Shamrock Invitational at Doug Shaw Stadium in Myrtle Beach.
Both the men's and women's teams will be on display during the two-day event for CCU.
The Chanticleer men go into this weekend as they picked up four event wins last weekend at Doug Shaw Stadium during the Myrtle Beach Collegiate Challenge.
In the 110-meter hurdles, freshman Tyler Graves took home first-place with a result of 14.12 (3.3), the sixth-fastest time in school history.
Sophomore Dallas Wise earned two first-place honors in the triple jump and high jump.
Wise earned his first win of the opening weekend of the outdoor season in the triple jump as he broke the meet record and was just shy of the CCU school record with a mark of 15.37 (2.1) meters. The Irmo, S.C., native bested the previous record set by Ron Buchanan of NC A&T in 2008 of 15.30 meters. Later in the meet, Wise earned his second victory of the two-day meet in the long jump as he reached a height of 2.08 meters.
Junior David Ejumeta picked up his first career Coastal Carolina first-place finish in the long jump, four-hundredths shy of the meet, and Doug Shaw Stadium record of 7.67 meters set by Coastal graduate Erik Eckleben in 2018. The Berin City, Nigeria native's 7.63 (1.7) meters goes down as the second-best mark in Chanticleer history behind Eckleben's mark.
Ejumeta, Graves, and fellow Chants Braydon Bennett and Ty Floyd teamed up to earned the Coastal team a win in the 4x100 relay event as they finished with a time of 41.19, seven-hundredths of a second faster than the second-place team.
The women will be in action for the first time during the 2021 outdoor season. It will feature the last two Sun Belt Conference Indoor Freshman and Newcomers of Year, Melissa Jefferson and Jermaisha Arnold, and four other 2021 indoor conference honorees.
Jefferson picked up second-team All-Sun Belt Indoor honors for the second-straight season. At the championships, the sophomore recorded a second-place finish in the 60-meter dash finals with a new personal-best time of 7.41 and in the 200-meters with a time of 24.03, also a new personal-best mark. Both times were the second-best marks in the Sun Belt in each event of the season and the second-fastest in school history behind only Erica Peake's time of 7.39 in the 60-meters and 23.40 in the 200-meters.
Arnold raced her way to the 400-meter Sun Belt Championship title at the conference meet with a time of 54.46. The freshman was the only sprinter with a sub-55.00 time on the day and capped her indoor season off with her fourth win in the 400-meters.
Three other Chanticleers sprinters, Lauren Gordon, Amaryah White, and Shani'a Bellamy, are worth keeping an eye on. The trio, along with Arnold, earned all-conference honors during the indoor season as they turned in a time of 3:46.07 in the women's 4x400-meter relay as the Sun Belt Championships, finishing less than a second behind the first-place team from Troy. Their time is the sixth-fastest 4x400-meter relay time in Coastal's indoor track & field history.
Sophomore Nikki Boon excelled during her second career indoor season as a multi-event athlete competitor for Coastal Carolina.
Boon received All-Sun Belt Conference honors with a sixth-place finish at the championships in the women's pentathlon with a total of 3,497 points, the second-most in school history. Boon highlighted the five-event competition with a second-place finish in the shot put (11.89 meters), a fifth-place finish in the 800-meters (2:27.54), and a sixth-place showing in the long jump (5.33 meters) over the five events.
Former Chanticleer coach Alan Connie will be honored on Saturday at 10:45 a.m ET on the Doug Shaw Stadium infield for his accomplishments and contributions to the track and field community.
The two-day event will kickoff on Friday morning at 10 a.m. ET with the men's hammer throw.
For complete coverage of CCU Cross Country and Track and Field, follow the Chanticleers on social media at @CoastalTFXC (Twitter), @GoCCUSports (Instagram), and facebook.com/CCUChanticleers (Facebook) or visit the official home of Coastal Carolina Athletics at www.GoCCUsports.com.
