Davion Lambert has been thinking about the 24-point gap that separated second-place VCU and two-time defending Colonial Athletic Association champion William & Mary.
That’s a lot to think about.
The process would probably start somewhere around the shot put, where the Tribe racked up 24 points by dominating the top three spots in the shot put. It could move to the 21 points from the 5,000m, then to the 20 William & Mary got in the javelin and end about four miles away at the 1500-meter run where they picked up another 18.
He and the rest of Rams men’s track team will have a chance to forget it all this weekend in Fairfax when George Mason host the CAA conference championship. Not only is VCU aiming to dethrone the Tribe, the Rams want to bring the school its first CAA track and field championship since 1996.
“Everybody knows what’s at hand,” said Lambert, a sophomore jumper. “Every body knows what on the table.”
Lambert saw it every day in practice shimmering on the hand of first-year assistant coach Ron Jones. Between the two athlete of the year awards and the record-setting long jump, Lambert and Jones share certain commonalties.
The difference between the two, however, is that Jones flosses a championship ring that he and the Rams earned nine years ago by dominating the rest of the field with 148 points as a team, including distant runner-up William & Mary, which posted 118.
Having Jones as a mentor “made a big difference in how I performed,” said Lambert, who knows that legacy Jones left on the track and has every intention of surpassing it.
The mission, almost LeBron-Jordanian, starts with winning a championship, something Lambert–almost exclusively a jumper–can’t do on his own, something sprinter James Frierson can’t do either, something that will go beyond the individual abilities of newcomer Brett Frykberg or newly crowned CAA Athlete of the Week Lukasz Matusiewicz, but will have to combine them all.
“I think everybody should be ready” Lambert said, with the challenge just days away. “Everybody’s been ready. Everybody knows who’s going to get their points. We need all the little points. Everybody should go into their event thinking they’re going to score.”
By that logic, the personal-best, 24-foot, 3-inch long jump by Brandon Argro couldn’t have come at a better time than Wednesday’s practice. The jump, he said, is a confidence boost for this weekend.
“That could put me in either a number one or a number two spot from a four or a five,” he said.
That would also mean another four to six points to add to the Rams’ total.
Frierson contributed 22 points last year for the Rams, only to fall short, but “because I was on last year’s team,” he said, “I want to be better than last year’s team.”
VCU dominated nine of the 21 events last year, but the Tribe owned distance events (50 points from the 800, 1,500, 5,000, and 10,000) and closed things out with throws. While VCU may have been two-dimensional last year, sprinter James Frierson knows they’ll have to pick up points in events outside the sprints and jumps in order to win and he says this year’s team is has the talent to do it.
“We’re a better team than what we had last year,” said Frierson. “We’re a lot more well-rounded, we’re not just based on sprints.”
Frierson will run the 4×100-meter relay along with sophomores Jackie Deshazo, Lukasz Matusiewicz and Mariusz Mostrag. He will also run the 100, 200 and 400 in order to hoard as many points as possible.
He and Argro both said in their second years they feel more prepared for the championship meet because of the work they’ve done in workouts and weight rooms with their new coaches.
“I’ve got pretty much the same thing I had on my plate last year,” Frierson said. “I just didn’t have the proper silverware. That’s the coaching. I just stuck my face in the plate, now I’ve got my silverware. This year I’m ready to eat.”
He saw the same thing Lambert saw hanging on the hand of his new coach and expects to have a ring of his own after this weekend.
“Conference is the big thing,” Frierson said. “No one wants to go out with a naked finger.”