The Tennessee State University men and women’s track team showed no signs of slowing down as they entered the season by hosting the 16th annual Edward Temple Classic. The teams finished the day by taking home 11 first – place finishes. At last season’s Edward Temple Classic, the Flying Tigers and Tigerbelles combined for a total of five first-place wins, three of which were accounted by the Flying Tigers. This year, it was the Tigerbelles who outlasted the men, finishing with six first-place wins, four of which coming from sophomore team captain, Amber Hughes.
Hughes set the tone for the team by placing first in four different events being the 55 meter dash, 200 meter dash, triple jump, and the 4×400 meter relay.
“No, I expect that. When you’re at home you’re supposed to do good, so my thing is not to go out and buy awards and have the other teams take them away. I wanted the awards to stay here at home, so I was very pleased that we did what we did,” said Coach Chandra Cheeseborough.
The TSU track and field team does a pretty good job of keeping the trophies at home when it comes to the Ed Temple Classic, and Coach Cheeseborough states that with the team she has, she is excited about where the team is going moving forward and will continue to do well at home.
Senior sprinter Diera Taylor, who was also a part of the winning 4×400 meter relay team finished with the group’s best time of 59.85 seconds.
“Going into the Ed Temple Classic Meet, I felt excited but a little nervous. Knowing that this meet would be my last indoor home meet made me want to do my best and give my all in each event. The 4 by 400 meter team this year I do see as being a dominant team, and even though we continue to switch up the order, we all go out and try to run our best times while continuing to encourage each other before the race,” said Taylor.
Moving forward, the Tigers and Tigerbelles look to excel through the season by getting stronger as well as faster in order to dominate in this year’s Ohio Valley Conference Championship. The men are still facing issues at depth but Cheeseborough looks to counter that by going out and recruiting in hopes to build a men’s program that will compete for their first championship.
“My desire is to win on the men’s side, just as we have done on the women’s side. The first thing is not fully funded so we tend to stay local, but to make up for that, we tend to stay local and see who will be a good fit for our program,” said Cheeseborough.
Coach Cheeseborough and the track team will conclude their indoor season play with the OVC Indoor Championship, Friday March 13th, in Fayetteville, AR.
