The Men’s Track and Field team opened up their season on Friday at the Stockton Invitational. The team performed at a high level during their first meet in 55 weeks and even made some headlines.

Freshman Nana Agyemang finished first in the 100-meter with a time of 11.34, the 200-meter with a time of 22.37 and was part of the winning 4×100 team that finished with a time of 41.67 and is currently ranked No. 1 in Division III. Agyemang was named New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) Track Athlete of the Week and his teammate, sophomore Nick Kokolis, was named NJAC Rookie of the Week after finishing first in discus.

When asked about his performance this weekend Agyemang was happy but is still striving to improve from this meet, despite the first place finishes.

“I’m happy with where I placed but my times could be better,” Agyemang said. “There was a lot of head wind, so there is nothing I can do about that, but I do hope to improve those times as the season progresses.”

Agyemang pin-pointed what he is hoping to improve on.

“I really want to get better with my top end speed and holding that for as long as I can,” Agyemang said.

This past Friday was Agyemang’s first time competing collegiately and he said it felt great to get out there and compete in his first meet in about two years. Agyemang also spoke about how it felt to be named NJAC Track Athlete of the Week.

“It feels amazing; especially as a true freshman, it’s a great accomplishment,” Agyemang said. “It gets me excited to see what I can do through the rest of the season.”

Agyemang was also part of the first place 4×100 team, which he has been working hard with to get to the level they are currently at.

“It took a lot of work in practice,” Agyemang said. “Our speed came naturally and we knew we were going to be fast but didn’t [know] it would result in the time we had, which is great, and it is really encouraging to see what we can do as we improve.”

Agyemang also spoke about how he has a great support group at practice.

“Practice has been great – it really prepared us going into that meet, and I feel good afterwards,” Agyemang said.

When asked if there was anything different with this meet compared to those in the past, Agyemang mentioned the lack of fans was new to him.

“Just having minimal fans and minimal teams was a little weird,” Agyemang said. “But other than that, it was all the same.”

Head Coach Dustin Dimit said it just felt great to finally get back out there after all that time.

“The victory alone was getting out there and being able to start up again,” Dimit said. “Having good performances on top of that made it even better.”

One of the good performances that Dimit was referring to was Agyemang’s.

“It was really impressive, even with the head wind. To be ranked top 30 to 40 in the country is great,” Dimit said. “And it was his first college meet so it shows that he is ready to compete at this level.”

Overall, Dimit was happy with his team but knows there is always room to improve.

“We were happy with the team this weekend, and we hope it is something we can build and improve off of,” Dimit said. “We hope the team gets looser and shakes some of the rust off as the season progresses, but they performed well this weekend, and we’re excited to see what else we can do.”

The team is currently ranked sixth nationally and is second in the region behind Ithaca. They are preparing to compete again this weekend in their first home meet, the Rowan Oscar Moore Invitational, on Saturday, April 3 at 10 a.m. 

For comments/questions about this story, tweet @TheWhitOnline.