The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

INTERIM head coach Dominic Demeritte and his Life University Eagles, led by senior versatile jumper Bria Sands, will be soaring at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Outdoor Track & Field Championships.

The NAIA Championships will get underway today at the Mickey Miller Blackwell Stadium in Gulf Shores, Alabama The championships will conclude on Friday.

Sands, in a triple feat in the women’s long, high and triple jumps, will be one of eight athletes and a relay team that will represent Life University at the championships, which will also feature a few other Bahamians from their respective schools.

“I feel that we are heading in the right direction and would like this to be a trend not an outlier,” said Demeritte. “Morale is great, confidence is high and we as a coaching staff are excited for these young ladies and their growth over the season.”

Sands, coming off an impressive season, hopes to go out in style in her senior year at Life University. She has recorded the second best performance this year in the high jump with a leap of 5-feet, 7-inches or 1.70m; third in the triple jump with 40-8 3/4 (12.41m) and fifth in the long jump with 19-6 3/4 (5.96m).

Looking at her accomplishments, Demeritte said the expectations are riding high for Sands, who should become a Hall of Famer at Life University when her collegiate career is over.

“She started the season as well as one could start and plateaued a bit in the middle,” Demeritte pointed out. “With the change in a new coach in the middle of the season, the difficulty has been learning new cues and relearning basic fundamentals.”

Based on her preparation for the meet, Demeritte anticipates that Sands could emerge with three gold medals, but he acknowledges that those awards have to be earned when it counts the most in competition.

Sands, the younger sister of Bahamian Olympic triple jump bronze medalist and national record holder Leevan ‘Superman’ Sands, is also expected to be a part of Life women’s 4 x 100m relay team that includes Iantha Wright, Alisha Wright, Alexia Perkins, Maya Smith-Speed and Elan St. Julian. The team ran a season’s best of 46.66 seconds.

Also competing at the championships is Wayland Baptist with ten (10) athletes entered, including Bahamian middle distance runner Coshan Campbell.

In her senior year as well, Campbell will compete for Wayland Baptist in the women’s 800m where she has posted the second best NAIA time this season of 2:12.04.

She is also listed on their women’s 4 x 400 and 4 x 800m. And Indiana Tech, with 22 athletes and two relay teams, will be competing, highlighted by Bahamian female junior sprinter Antonishka Deveaux, a graduate of St John’s College and former student at the University of The Bahamas.

Deveaux is listed at number 19 in the women’s 200m with a time of 24.56. She is also expected to represent Indiana Tech on their women’s 4 x 100m relay team that has run 45.50 and their 4 x 400m relay team that did 3:52.31.