Hobwana shines in rainy weather at Fred Hardy Invite

Coming off a successful meet at the Charlotte 49er Classic, the Pitt track team was scheduled… Coming off a successful meet at the Charlotte 49er Classic, the Pitt track team was scheduled to split ways this past weekend to compete in two outdoor events.

The Stanford Invitational and the Fred Hardy Invitational in Richmond, Va., were the two events on the schedule.

But rather than risk putting strenuous time constraints on some participants’ academic commitments by flying them to northern California, the entire team stayed on the East Coast.

‘We normally split our distance runners and send them out to Stanford,’ said Pitt coach Alonzo Webb. ‘But this year we decided to send everyone to Richmond.’

As for the event, Webb said the Panthers posted good results, despite running into some unexpected, miserable weather.

‘The forecast said 69 degrees, but when we got down there it was cool, windy and rainy,’ said Webb. ‘It showed, the [runners’] times weren’t outstanding because the conditions weren’t very good. It did show me a bit about their competitiveness. I thought the kids competed very well under the conditions and didn’t complain about anything.’

As for some notable results at the Fred Hardy Invitational, junior Anthony Hobwana finished in first place in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.68 seconds. According to Webb, Hobwana set a meet record in the event and ran close to his personal best.

Hobwana also helped the 4-by-400 relay team, which included Dontave Cowsette, and Jermaine and Jerome Lowery, best the 12-team field for another first-place finish. The team beat second-place Virginia Commonwealth by three seconds with a time of 3 minutes, 16.89 seconds.

The Panthers’ Brandon Turner and Garrett Larkin captured top honors in the field events. Turner won the triple jump with a leap of 14.66 meters, while Larkin led all throwers in the shot put with a mark of 16.40 meters, besting fellow thrower Dan Kwiatkowski, who took second with a throw of 15.18 meters.

Turner and Larkin both set personal bests and qualified for the Big East Outdoor Championships.

The Panthers also had three women set personal bests and qualify for the Big East’s. Virginia Thistle and Robin Gilmore excelled in the discus and Sarah Anderson qualified in the hammer throw.

‘We had quite a few qualify for the Big East,’ said Webb. ‘It was actually a fun meet, a lot of the events we competed in were not our usual events.

They were off events that aren’t our standard events, just to prepare for the Big East’s. We’ll start getting them into their regular events to get them qualified for the Big East’s.’

Pitt’s next big meet is the Aggie Invitational, which starts Friday morning in Greensboro, N.C.

The Panthers will send a lot of their ECAC qualifiers to Greensboro to get a preview of the same track that hosts the ECAC Championships later this year.