Hemmings adjusting to life at Clemson
Published:Tuesday | March 9, 2021 | 12:16 AMHubert Lawrence/Gleaner Writer
The versatile Trishauna Hemmimgs is making the transition to success at Clemson University. That’s the evaluation by Clemson’s director of track and field, Jamaican Mark Elliot, after Hemmimgs performed creditably at the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Indoor Championship late last month.
The former Glengoffe and Hydel High School standout won the 200 metres and took third in the 60-metre hurdles.
Hemmimgs set personal-best times of 23.12 and 8.09 seconds, respectively, on her home track at Clemson to qualify for this week’s NCAA Indoor Championships at the University of Arkansas.
Winner of ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championship medals for both Glengoffe and Hydel, the Lennox Graham-coached Jamaican earned herself the ACC Women’s Track Most Valuable Performer of the meet award.
“This is all part of the transition that we’re seeing from Trishauna, from when we recruited her out of Hinds Community College until now,” said Elliott in a release posted on the Clemson website. “Coach Lennox has done an awesome job with her, and you can see there’s still room to grow ... . To see her do that and now be track MVP in the ACC, it’s a tall task, and she’s deserving of it all.”
At Champs, Hemmings competed in a wide range of events, including the heptathlon, where she finished third for Hydel in 2016. At Hinds Community College, Hemmings was third in the 2019 Junior College Nationals 60-metre hurdles indoors and the 100-metre hurdles outdoors.
Graham, the Jamaican coach of World gold and bronze medal winner Danielle Williams, has Hemmings primed.
“She’s in a good place. We started the 200m seriously this year, just, as usual, in my approach to coaching sprint hurdlers, I want them to be total sprinters,” Graham outlined.
HAMSTRING INJURY
Recovery from a hamstring injury made the 200m a better option than the more explosive 60m or the long jump.
“Actually, she went reluctantly to the 200m because she wasn’t confident that she was going to be able to factor,” he recalled, before adding that a time of 23.28 seconds on February 13 eased her apprehension.
“At the start of the season, I did want her to long jump but, again, because she had that hamstring injury – and she still had a knot we were trying to get rid of in the hamstring – I didn’t want her to be exploding. I think she has excellent potential in the long jump actually, but for this season, no, no more jumping. It’s just going to be hurdles and the sprints,” Graham said.
He expects her to advance in the 100m hurdles outdoors.
“I see her breaking the sub-13 this year for sure outdoors, and for me, indoors is that platform that you do before going on to the real deal, which is outdoors; so the main objective this year is to break 13 seconds and, obviously, also to break 23 seconds,” said Graham.