Stepp, Snead eye individual national championships as duo represents Eagles at Indoor Championships
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn.—For the third consecutive season, the Carson-Newman track and field team will have representatives at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships as sprinter Kevin Snead (Richmond, Va.) and high jumper Tanner Stepp (Jefferson City, Tenn.) prepare to make the voyage to Birmingham, Ala. for competition beginning Thursday morning.
VIDEO: Tyler Stepp Interview
VIDEO: Tanner Stepp Interview
JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn.—For the third consecutive season, the Carson-Newman track and field team will have representatives at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships as sprinter Kevin Snead (Richmond, Va.) and high jumper Tanner Stepp (Jefferson City, Tenn.) prepare to make the voyage to Birmingham, Ala. for competition beginning Thursday morning.
The duo will be looking to track down an individual national championship while also tacking on All-American status for the fourth and fifth time.
To qualify for indoor nationals, each athlete must be ranked in the top-16 in their event to get an automatic bid. The national stage presents the best indoor track and field athletes in the nation. C-N's last and only track and field national champion was long jumper Larry Cooke at the indoor sector in 1977.
"We feel pretty good going into this and you always have to feel good when you have two athletes such as Tanner and Kevin who always go out and perform their best," assistant coach Tyler Stepp said. "Those guys are both capable of winning. Will they win? I don't know. We feel real good about where we are right now, so we are just going to go in there, test our luck and see how it goes."
Hoping to add to that list will be both Snead and Stepp as the duo will be making back-to-back trips to nationals in as many years. In fact, this will be Stepp's fifth national appearance as the junior has qualified for nationals at the tail end of each indoor and outdoor campaign to begin his career.
Both athletes rank in the nation's top-10 in their respected events and both were named to the 2017 Southeast Regional indoor squad Monday morning by the United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
Stepp's showcase on the national stage has seen the junior sport top-10 markings in all four appearances. As a freshman, the Jefferson City, Tenn. native finished fifth with a 2.05 meter mark and sixth a season ago with a 2.06 meter recording. In the outdoor realm, Stepp has finished ninth and fourth, respectively.
A season ago, Snead walked away with three All-American statuses that began with a 10th-place showing in the indoor competition after completing the 60 meter dash with a 6.81 second time. Months later at the outdoor games, the speedster logged a third-place finish in the 200 meter sprint with a 20.87 second time and the fifth-best time in the 100 meter run with a 10.37 second recording.
For Snead, the senior will be going into the competition ranked as Division II's fifth-fastest 60 meter dash sprinter. The Richmond, Va. native trails only Mobolade Ajomale (Academy of Art), Lester Miller (Shorter), Reginald Thomas (Tiffin) and Marquett Simmons Jr. (Limestone) in the event.
At the Clemson Tiger Paw Invitational on Feb. 17, Snead ran a season-best time of 6.75 seconds in the event. The time was only 0.02 seconds off a career-best posted at the UCS Invitational on Feb. 20 of last year. Snead is hoping to reel in his fourth-career All-American honor when the meet begins after coming off an impressive debut season for C-N a year ago.
"Kevin is a type of guy who will always runs well in a bigger race," Tyler Stepp said. "He has been to a lot of big meets and small meets and you can go back and look at his times to see that he always performs better running against faster competition. Kevin is a guy that everyone knows is dangerous and we are expecting a big time from his this weekend."
Stepp has not missed a beat thus far as a junior during the indoor campaign as the local product leaped a season-best of 2.11 meters at the Buccaneer Invitational on Feb. 2. All five of Stepp's jumps this season have been either 2.00 meters or better while three have surpassed the 2.06 meter mark.
Currently tied for seventh in Division II, Stepp is even with Cameron Burrows (Tiffin), Trey Everett (Findlay) and Michael Sandle (Minnesota State), with the 2.11 meter mark. The foursome fall just behind Barton's Lawrence Russel Jr. (2.13 meters), Minnesota State's Jeff DeCock (2.13 meters), Grand Valley State's Hunter Weeks (2.15 metrs), Ashland's Myles Pringle (2.17 meters), Wingate's Isaiah Kyle (2.17 meters) and Saint Martin's Mikel Smith (2.12 meters).
"I need to be consistent throughout all of my jumps this weekend so that [assistant coach] Tyler [Stepp] can tell me what I need to fix and what I am doing well and wrong," Tanner Stepp said. "Really consistency will be the thing, because we can fix stuff along the way as long as I am doing things the same way every time."
The 2017 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships will be held at the Birmingham CrossPlex while the University of Alabama Huntsville and the City of Birmingham will serve as co-hosts for the meet. The showcase will sport a total of 540 participants that comprise of both 270 men and women. The championships will be streamed live at www.NCAA.com from March 9-11.
To see the complete qualifying list for the 2017 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, please click here.
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