Corey Carter. 2018 All-American sprinter from Principia College.
Over the last few days, the freshman from Cincinnati, OH had several great races on the national stage in La Crosse, Wisconsin. First, it was an honor to qualify for the NCAA Division III National Championships. An athlete had to have run one of the top 20 times in the nation during the outdoor season to qualify.
The competition started on Thursday with the preliminary races in the 200. Corey came into the meet ranked 19
th in the nation with a qualifying time of 21.51 seconds. Running in the first of three heats, he finished in fifth place with a time of 22.20. Ultimately, that would place him 12
th in the nation overall, but he would not move onto the finals. The fastest time of all three heats was a 21.74.
On Friday, Corey had another opportunity with the 100 meter dash, where once again, he ranked 19
th in the nation with a time of 10.64 seconds. Like the 200, each athlete would race in one of three preliminary heats with the winner of each heat automatically qualifying for finals and the next six fastest times from all the heats earning the last six spots to complete the field of nine for finals the next day. However, just before the race was set to begin, the meet was shut down because of severe weather. The delay lasted four hours. After all athletes had already warmed up once, they now had to warm up a second time once the meet resumed at 8:30 pm.
The weather did not dampen Corey's determination. He'd been through a long weather delay at an important meet before when he was a junior at the Upper School competing in the Missouri State Championships. On this day, he finished the third heat in third place with a time of 10.92 seconds. The 100 is a race that requires both speed and power. A sprinter with more speed sometimes gets out quickly, while the athlete with more power takes longer to get to top speed. However, every sprinter is in a state of deceleration in the final few seconds of even a short race like the 100. The difference between first and last is sometimes who decelerates less rapidly. Although Corey had a good start, he still was behind most of the field early in the first third of the race. He had to pass several runners in order to qualify. "I made up a lot of ground in the prelims. A lot of those guys are a lot stronger than me." Also, the 100 is all about the decimal places. Both eighth and ninth place had the same time so they had to measure the difference by looking at the third decimal place. Corey's time was .005 seconds faster than the ninth place qualifying time. The first person to miss the finals in tenth place was only .01 seconds behind.
On Saturday, there would be no weather delays as the skies were clear and the temperature was on its way to 90 degrees. In the 100 finals, Corey continued his trend of finishing better than what he was ranked as he finished in seventh place to earn All-America honors. He recorded a time of 10.92 seconds, the same as in the preliminaries. The winning time was 10.74 seconds. Although very grateful for his finish, Corey said, "I am shooting for even higher goals next season." He knows where he can make significant improvements next year. "I don't believe [the other sprinters] are faster than me, just stronger."Â
Those that have kept up with his times all season know that both the 100 and 200 races were slower than expected at a national championship race. Strong headwinds made all the sprint race times slower than normal. In the 200, Corey raced into an incredibly strong head wind of 3.5 meters per second (7.93 miles per hour). In the 100 finals, the race was run into a headwind of 1.3 meters per second. While that might not seem that fast, it makes a significant difference in a race decided by small fractions of a second.
Corey's seventh place finish was a wonderful way to cap a successful freshman season at Principia College. Head coach,
Robert Baker said, "We were just thankful to be here and have the experience as a freshman." This was the first trip to nationals for a Principia College sprinter since Ngozi Mwanamwambwa Asinga in 1993.
One final note from Corey. "Thanks to everyone for their support throughout the season and all through nationals." The entire Principia community can also be grateful to have such a humble young man representing us on the national stage.
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