SPORTS SECTION E
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 2017
‘Mighty Mouse’ brings home lightweight title By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net
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aul ‘Mighty Mouse’ Wilson, competing overseas for the second time this year, won the men’s lightweight of the 2017 NPC California State Championships in Culver City, California. It was Wilson’s first appearance in a championship outside of the state of Florida and he left his mark in the 154 1/4 –pound class on May 27 as he won the divisional title over Aidan Acuff, who was second. Steven Mendoza came in third and Pete Yamamoto was fourth. “This was the biggest and the most prestigious show in the state of California because it qualified any resident or American to the USA National Championships,” Wilson said. “So I just wanted to go there and see how well I could compete against the competitors over there.” As it turned out, Wilson surprised himself and his rivals. He was the lone Bahamian competing in the championships, but Wilson said he didn’t let that deter him. “When you go to competitions like this, you don’t know who you will compete against,” said Wilson, who has won a couple of titles competing in the Florida State Championships in the past. “At the end of the day, you are competing against yourself and you just hope that your performance is good enough to pull it off.”
Wilson, coming off his bronze medal in his first meet in March in Santo Domingo as he made his return after a year off, said he was prepared for the challenge in California. “When I saw the competition, I kind of knew that I had a chance to win my division,” he stated. “But I was hoping to win the overall title too, but of course with me being a smaller bodybuilder, that didn’t come to fruition.” Being a fresh new face on stage, Wilson said he stunned the audience and impressed the judges with his performance. “The physique that I had and the quality that I brought to the show in that class, to be a lightweight, but to be bigger than an averaged lightweight, they were really surprised,” he said. “Since the event, I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on my social apps like Instagram and WhatsApp. I made a lot of friends over there and they congratulated me, telling me that they’ve never seen poses like that and the quality that I brought to the lightweight class.” Wilson said he was in awe of the accolades he got because he rarely gets it from home. But he said it has also given him the motivation to continue to compete against his rivals here. “Now, I’ve gotten the exposure upstate and I’ve gotten the exposure in the region, so I’m going to con-
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PAUL ‘MIGHTY MOUSE’ WILSON in action at the NPC California State Championships in Culver City, California.
Joshua Turnquest has ‘pretty good’ season By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net JOSHUA Turnquest was more than delighted with his freshman year at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. He was named the Eagles men’s tennis Player of the Year and was selected to the NAIA Second Team All-American, all during the month of May. “The season was pretty good,” said Turnquest, who is back home on his summer vacation. “In the fall, I was able to compete in the ITA event and I made it and because of that, I got a ranking of number 48 and we made it to Nationals. “We won our conference and I was able to win Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year and AllConference Team. As a team, as a
result of competing in the Nationals, our ranking jumped from 26 to 17. So it was a pretty good year for me.” Turnquest finished the season 18-3 in doubles play and from his No. 1 singles position he went an impressive 23-2 over the course of the year, including in the ITA Regionals back in the fall. Turnquest was instrumental in the Eagles’ River States Conference win in the conference tournament as well as a big piece of their upset in the NAIA National Tournament over the College of Coastal Georgia for the programme’s first-ever national tournament win. Adding to an already impressive list of accomplishments this season, including conference Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, Turnquest picked up his first
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JOSHUA TURNQUEST has been named Eagles men’s tennis Player of the Year and was selected to the NAIA Second Team All-American in May.
Midnight
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KATRINA SEYMOUR OVERCOMES HURDLES ON TRACK, AND IN HER LIFE JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (June 5, 2017) – When senior ETSU track and field athlete Katrina Seymour, of New Providence, Bahamas, gets set into the blocks at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, everything will seem routine. In front of her are 10 evenly placed hurdles surrounding 400 metres of track surface with multiple competitors right by her side. Just like on the track, Seymour has had to overcome multiple hurdles during her time in Johnson City. From adjusting to a new town, to wondering if she would be able to compete and dealing with injuries, Seymour’s journey to the NCAA Championships has been nothing but hurdles. However, both on the track and in life, Seymour has breezed over the hurdles she has faced. During her senior campaign for the Buccaneers, Seymour has re-written the record books. In the indoor season, the hurdler shined at the Southern Conference Championships, earning titles in the 60m dash, 400m, 200m and 4x400 relay. She only continued her success during the outdoor season, as Seymour broke the ETSU school record in the 400mH four times and broke a Bahamian national record at the NCAA East Prelims. All the accomplishments led to Seymour becoming the first ETSU female track athlete to compete at the NCAA Championships since 2009. While the New Providence, Bahamas native makes it look easy on the track, it wasn’t always that way. Arriving at ETSU in January of 2016, Seymour was presented with the challenge of learning a new place, new culture and a new way of life. If moving to a new country and city weren’t big enough hurdles for Seymour, injuries would soon become the next great block. After running a lifetime best time of 56.86 in the 400mH at the Aggie Last Chance Qualifier in 2016, which was one hundredth of a second away from the Bahamian national record, the injury hurdle struck. A few weeks later at the Aliann Pompey Invitational in Leonora, Guyana, Seymour suffered a seasonending injury, which required months of rehab for a fractured knee and bone bruise. However, once again the hurdles of life were un-
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Darius Adams earns national championship honours in long jump By RENALDO DORSETT Tribune Sports Reporter rdorsett@tribunemedia.net MULTIPLE sports star Darius Adams continues to excel for the Coast Guard Academy Bears and his latest exploits
earned national championship honours in the process. Adams won the national championship in the long jump at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championships at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio. On his third attempt, Adams leapt 7.35m for the winning jump to take the national title in his first NCAA Championship appearance. He began with a round-one jump of 7.20m to tie for third place and moved into first place with a second-round mark of 7.31. Matt Fleming of Benedictine finished second at 7.28m and Jerry Williams of Wisconsin-Stevens Point was third at 7:27. Adams made school history by becoming the first member of the Bears’ athletic programme to claim an individual national title and All-American honours since 2014. He is also the school record holder in the long jump with a mark of 7.46m, set at the
New England Open Championship which featured athletes from Divisions I, II and III. According to the Bears’ athletic website, Adams has been one of the most standout student-athletes in the institution because of his contributions to multiple disciplines. “A junior from Nassau, Bahamas, he is one of the most gifted athletes at the academy. He was a member of the men’s basketball team for two years, averaging 9.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game as a sophomore. Adams earned All-NEWMAC honours with a second-place finish in the long jump (21.6.75) last year and had a breakout season as a member of the football team this fall as Adams, playing his first year of football at any level, tied three records and earned several postseason accolades,” it said. “He was named to the 2016 New England Football Writers Division II/III All-
New England Team. He was also named the New England Football Conference (NEFC) Offensive Rookie of the Year and was a first team all-conference selection. He broke single-season school records with 1,054 receiving yards and 13 touchdown receptions while also tying the single-game record of three touchdown receptions twice this season. He was second on the team with 47 receptions.” In 2014, Adams - a member of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force - made history when he became just the second Bahamian to the academy. Prior to joining the RBDF, he graduated from Pensacola Christian College with a grade point average of 3.78 while pursuing a degree in accounting and a minor in information services. He is currently a junior studying electrical engineering with a minor in computer science.