The Winthrop men’s and women’s track and field teams will begin their seasons this Friday and Saturday as the Eagles compete in the Appalachian State Invitational.
Head coach Ben Paxton said it is normal for Winthrop to open its season with one indoor event in December right before final exams to reward the sprinters, throwers and jumpers who have been conditioning and training all fall without any competition.
“Typically we don’t take any distance runners, or maybe just a handful, because they just finished up cross country obviously, and we have a meet for sprinters, throwers and jumpers to go to and keep them excited about going into the winter, doing their winter training, and then coming back and starting the full indoor season as well,” Paxton said.
The meet at App State will be the only competition for the Eagles before winter break. In the spring semester, Winthrop will continue its indoor season with back-to-back weekends in Columbia at the Carolina Challenge (Jan. 21-22) and the South Carolina Invitational (Jan. 28-29), before heading to West Virginia for the Marshall Invitational (Feb.11-12), followed by the Virginia Tech Challenge (Feb. 18-19) in Virginia.
Winthrop’s five indoor events, plus the conference championships, are exciting for the team after not getting an indoor season in 2020.
“We didn’t do indoor last year,” Paxton said. “We opted out of it.
“That’s going to be a lot better for the student-athletes — to travel, to get excited about doing things. It’s going to look much more like 2019 than 2020.”
Along with having indoor competitions again, Paxton said the outdoor season will involve more travel than last season, which saw the Eagles host five events at home due to COVID-19 budget cuts and travel restrictions.
The Eagles will begin their outdoor season by traveling to Charlotte for the 49er Classic (March 18-19), then returning home for the Winthrop/Adidas Invitational (March 24-26).
Winthrop will then have four events in the month of April, including the Bill Carson Invitational (April 1-2) hosted by East Carolina, the Phoenix Invitational (April 16) hosted by Elon, the UVA Challenge (April 22-23) hosted by Virginia, and the Charlotte Invitational (April 29-30) which the Eagles will return to Charlotte for.
The Big South Outdoor Championships will take place May 11-13 in Greensboro, NC.
One athlete Paxton will be coaching again this season is his daughter, Olivia Paxton.
Olivia Paxton was a stand-out freshman at Winthrop in 2016-2017, but transferred to William & Mary and began competing there in 2018-2019. After two years at William & Mary, she came back to Winthrop and has been granted a sixth year of eligibility for this season, partially because of COVID-19 and in part because of an achilles injury that required surgery.
“She’s definitely looking forward to getting back and trying to qualify for the NCAAs,” Ben Paxton said.
Along with his daughter, Paxton said he expects big seasons from Libby Roush (who he said was not far from qualifying for the NCAAs in discus last season) and Ambar Nunez-Gomez (who placed third as a freshman in the indoor weight throw in 2019).
On the men’s side, Paxton said the team is young, but he expects freshmen Ian Greshman (hurdles) and Jaden Mathieu (high jump) to make “an immediate impact.”
