Former Tabernacle Baptist Academy Falcons quarter miler Demetrius Pinder captured a gold medal Saturday, the final day of the NCAA Division One Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas.<\/p>\n
Pinder, the NACAC U23 bronze medalist, representing Texas A&M, won the men’s 400m in 45.33 seconds, which beat the old facility record of 45.69 set by Michael Bingham in 2009.<\/p>\n
“I’m happy I got the win, because I worked so hard every day,” said Pinder in an interview on his schools’ website. “It finally paid off. To be a senior and set a record is a big achievement for me. I really didn’t have a race strategy, I just wanted to go out there and run and do what I have to do, stay strong mentally and it came through.”<\/p>\n
Pinder also carried Texas A&M to victory in the men’s 4x400m relay.<\/p>\n
Pinder shot into the lead on the second lap of his team’s relay, when A&M took charge on its way to a winning time of 3:04.24.<\/p>\n
It was Pinder, who had excellent times and whose running style infused the crowd with a jolt of adrenaline.<\/p>\n
He rocketed forward during the pivotal stretch of the final race, giving A&M a going away present for the second national indoor championships it has hosted.<\/p>\n
“It was so crazy,” Pinder said of the noisy crowd of 4,487. “It made me happier and kept me going; it was an excellent day for me. I am just happy.”<\/p>\n
In the 400 meter final, fast start and a strong finish pushed Pinder in the lead. An extra gear made sure he never lost it. A Georgia runner, who closed within a step of the Aggie leader, pressed Pinder for the lead on the backstretch of the second lap.<\/p>\n
And then Pinder left.<\/p>\n
He surged forward and raced the finish to win in setting a new record for the Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium.<\/p>\n
“The 400 set me up mentally for my 4×4,” said Pinder, whose 1,600 relay split was 44.94. “It got me strong, mentally. I had a bad season in the beginning but I finished strong and I’m very proud of that.”<\/p>\n
The entire Island of Grand Bahama is also proud.<\/p>\n
By BUSTER LAING<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Demetrius Pinder walked away with a gold medal on the final day of the NCAA Division One Indoor Championships in College Station, Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[131,113],"class_list":["post-7026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports-2","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}