This past weekend was a busy one for Bahamian athletes competing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships on the campus of Colorado State University in Pueblo, Colorado.
Denisha Cartwright’s Minnesota State University (MSU) at Mankato Mavericks placed second overall, and Cartwright earned All-American honors.
The Mavericks scored 57 points for the second-place finish, coming behind the Azusa Pacific University Cougars who won with 66 points.
Cartwright, a junior, won the 100 meters (m) hurdles title, clocking a wind-aided 12.94 seconds. The race was ran with a tailwind of 4.9 meters per seconds (mps), and in the end, Cartwright came out on top, earning the title of national champion in that event for a second consecutive year. The time is not legal, but Cartwright went into the meet with a NCAA Division II best 13 seconds flat and had a time of 13.15 seconds in the preliminaries. The junior earned All-America honors for her performance.
Cartwright finished ahead of Missouri Southern University’s Kiara Smith who crossed the finish line a distant second in a time of 13.13 seconds. Finishing third was the Cougars’ Esther Conde-Turpin with a time of 13.14 seconds.
Cartwright was also in action in the 200m and her time of 23.10 seconds was good enough to give her a silver medal. Winning that race was Divonne Franklin from California University of Pennsylvania who stopped the clock at 22.77 seconds. Simon Fraser University’s Marie-Eloise Leclair was third in a time of 23.14 seconds.
The Bahamian was not finished competing as she went on to the track to run the 100m dash. Cartwright missed out on a podium finish, ending up fourth in a wind-aided time of 11.13 seconds. Winning that race to secure the double was Franklin in a time of 11.09 seconds.
Along with those three individual events, Cartwright was also on the track for the 4x100m relay with teammates Ja’Cey Simmons, Rose Cramer and Makayla Jackson. The race in the final was a strong one as it was a battle between the Mavericks and Lincoln University of Missouri for the top spot. In the end, it was one one hundredth of a second that separated the two with Lincoln finishing with a time of 44.20 and the Mavericks clocked 44.21 seconds. West Texas A&M won the bronze medal in 44.23 seconds. The Mavericks’ quartet had the third fastest time in the preliminaries – 44.47 seconds.
Cartwright has earned a total of 19 All-American awards in her collegiate career.
Another Bahamian competing at the meet was Robyn Rolle-Curry. She competed for the Minnesota State University (MSU) at Moorhead Dragons in the 400m. Rolle-Curry, who was the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference champion in the 400m, placed seventh over the weekend with a time of 53.67 seconds. With that finish she got an All-America honor. Winning that race was Winona State’s Shereen Vallabouy with a time of 52.74 seconds. Rolle-Curry went into the final with the fourth-fastest time in the preliminaries – 53.22 seconds which is a school record.