Chattahoochee Tech track and field made history at Eastern Illinois University in the NJCAA Indoor National Championships on Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3. Sophomore Darice Bowie gave CTC its first-ever individual national champion on Saturday by winning the women’s triple jump, besting the field with a mark of 12.09 meters (39’8”).
Bowie (Anniston, Ala. – Anniston H.S.), who came into the event ranked No. 1 in the country, beat out second-place Ashley Reid (11.82 meters, 38’9”) of Johnson County Community College (Kan.) by nearly a foot. The attempt was Bowie’s second-best of the year, as she set the school record in the triple jump earlier this indoor season.
Bowie earned First-Team All-American status with the win and helped the women’s team achieve its highest-ever finish at indoor nationals (16th place).
“Darice’s national title proves that the Golden Eagles teams have become competitive on a national level,” said head coach Steve Prettyman. “The women’s 16th-place finish shows that CTC’s teams are getting stronger and can jump even higher in the national rankings in future years.”
Bowie began her college career at Bevill State Community College in Alabama but transferred to CTC last spring when Bevill was forced to discontinue its program.
Freshman Jazmyne Taylor (Fairburn, Ga. – Langston Hughes H.S.) also scored points for the women’s team, finishing eighth in the 600 meter run with a time of 1:38.50. Taylor set the school record in Friday competition in the prelims, finishing third in her heat, then improved on that time on Saturday in the finals. She entered the weekend ranked 12th nationally in the event.
Taylor also just missed another top-eight finish by placing 11th in the long jump with an effort of 5.18 meters (17’). She began training and competing in the long jump for the first time just a few weeks prior to the national meet.
Sophomore Darryl Marlow (Norcross, Ga. – Norcross H.S.) achieved a top-eight finish for the men’s team, placing seventh in the long jump with an attempt of 7.08 meters (23’3”). Marlow was previously ninth in the country in the event. He also had his second-best performance of the season in the 60 meter dash with a time of 7.16 seconds, just short of the school record.
The men’s 4x800 relay team, an all-freshman group featuring Prentis Brown, Dominic Dalton, Matthew Walcott and Jamael Smith, set a school record with a 13th-place finish after entering as the 14th-best team in the country.
Sophomore Kellie Wilson and freshman Kandice Dixon also had notable performances for the women’s squad. Wilson just missed a top-eight spot in the high jump, finishing 12th at 1.55 meters (5’1”) after barely knocking off the bar on an attempt that would have put her in scoring position. Though Dixon didn’t make the finals in the 60 meter dash, she ran a personal season-best time of 7.92 to finish fifth in her heat.
The track and field programs have been competing in NJCAA since 2006 under Prettyman, who also started the cross country programs in 2004.
“The major four-year colleges recruiting at the national indoor meet really took notice of us,” Prettyman said. “We had multiple schools take an interest in our athletes that participated in this meet, with several schools making on-the-spot scholarship offers. We are looking forward to a very successful outdoor season.”
CTC broke another school record by bringing 12 athletes to the national meet, which featured over 600 junior college competitors from around the country. Chattahoochee Tech is the only Region 17 team to field track and field programs.
The Golden Eagles jump right back into competition when they open the outdoor track and field season in Alabama this Friday, March 9 at the Birmingham Invitational hosted by Birmingham Southern.
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