Khemani Roberts
-
- Height:
- 5-10
-
- Hometown:
- Bon Accord, Trinidad and Tobago
-
- Year:
- Sr.
-
- Previous School:
- Coppin State
Bio
2018: Took part in the NCAA Outdoor East Preliminary Round, where she came in 21st in the high jump … won the pentathlon at the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championships with a new Tech record 3,834 points … also broke the TTU heptathlon record with 5,353 points in her runner-up finish at the OVC Outdoor Championships … ran a leg of the 4x400m relay team that swept the indoor/outdoor OVC Championships and set a new TTU record with a time of 3:37.74 … also broke the program records for the indoor and outdoor high jump (1.79m, 1.77m) and the outdoor long jump (5.81m) … named OVC Female Field Athlete of the Week two times (Jan. 31, April 25) following performances at the Purdue Fred Wilt Open, and the Virginia Challenge … earned regular-season victories in the pentathlon, indoor high jump and outdoor long jump … recorded a whopping 16 top-six results in her performances in the high jump, long jump, pentathlon, heptathlon, 100-meter hurdles, 200m and 400m.
News mentions
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Khemani Roberts and Purity Sanga exerted tremendous effort among the nation’s elite at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field East Preliminary on Thursday, but unfortunately saw their 2019 outdoor seasons come to an end at the University of North Florida’s Hodges Stadium in Jacksonville. “Very proud of these young ladies,” said Tech head coach Wayne Angel. “It was a very long season, and they accomplished what most (Ohio Valley Conference) athletes can only dream of. They certainly are a part of Tennessee Tech legend and lore.” With the best collegiate athletes from the eastern half of the United States in attendance, the margin for error becomes incredibly slim.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Khemani Roberts, Purity Sanga and Raven Smith will bring their talents to the University of North Florida for the first round of collegiate track and field’s version of the postseason, the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field East Preliminary. UNF’s Hodges Stadium will be the venue for the three-day meet, which will be held Thursday-Saturday, May 23-25. The Golden Eagle trio marks four straight outdoor seasons that the program has sent at least two athletes to the East Preliminary. Roberts and Sanga are both qualifiers for the second straight year.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Battling a cold rain that hung around for most of the day, the shorthanded Tennessee Tech track and field team received runner-up results from Raven Smith and Purity Sanga on its way to a sixth–place team finish on Saturday at the Ohio Valley Conference Outdoor Championships in Cape Girardeau, Mo. Taking sixth in the final standings ends Tech’s reign of three consecutive OVC championships (2018 indoor, 2018 outdoor, 2019 indoor), which were also the first three in the program’s history. While some key pieces were not in the lineup this weekend, the Golden Eagles never gave up, and still managed to finished in the top half of the 12 women’s teams in attendance.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Jumpers Khemani Roberts and Raven Smith generated the storylines for Tennessee Tech on the second day at the Ohio Valley Conference Outdoor Championships, as Roberts claimed her second straight league title in the high jump, while Smith broke the school record with her second-place finish in the long jump. Roberts’ crown gives her the indoor/outdoor sweep as league champion in the high jump, where she was the only competitor to get over the bar at 1.75 meters (5 feet, 8 3/4 inches). The Bon Accord, Trinidad and Tobago native was perfect at the first five heights in the competition, needing just one attempt to eclipse 1.59, 1.64, 1.69, 1.72 and 1.75 meters, before bowing out at 1.80.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – In the final event of the evening, Sharon Chepkemboi scored Tennessee Tech’s first three points in the 10,000 meters, and Purity Sanga Khemani Roberts and Ceirra Tate posted qualifying marks in their respective preliminaries to highlight Tech’s Day 1 effort at the OVC Outdoor Championships on Thursday. Participating in the race for the first time as a collegian, Chepkemboi collected her three points as a result of a sixth-place finish out of 19 runners in the 10,000. She was the fastest non-senior in the competition, completing the meet’s longest distance event in 38-minutes, 6.01-seconds. Eastern Kentucky’s Lillian Kiborus claimed the league crown with a 36:13.98.
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. – Coach Wayne Angel and the Golden Eagle track and field team will likely face their stiffest challenge to date as they try to repeat as outdoor champions of the Ohio Valley Conference. Rising programs around the league, along with an adjusted Tech lineup will make for an especially tall task when the OVC Outdoor Championships are contested at Southeast Missouri Thursday-Saturday, May 9-11. Action from Abe Stuber Track Complex, SEMO’s on-campus venue, will get underway at 9 a.m. on Thursday morning, continue Friday morning at 9:30, and conclude Saturday with events beginning at 8:30 a.m.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Two more major awards will soon be added to the Tennessee Tech track and field trophy case, as it was announced Wednesday afternoon by the Ohio Valley Conference office that Purity Sanga was named Co-Track Athlete of the Year, while Khemani Roberts was selected as Field Athlete of the Year. The respective honors salute the dominant outdoor seasons put forth by both Sanga and Roberts, two athletes who have not only helped rewrite the Tech record book in 2019, but have recorded multiple No. 1 conference marks, and included themselves among the best in NCAA Division I.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Raven Smith and Purity Sanga showed once again why they are among the stars on the Tennessee Tech track and field team, recording top-eight finishes in the triple jump and the 1,500 meters, respectively, at the Louisville Lenny Lyles/Clark Wood Invitational on Saturday afternoon. Smith took the top finish of the day, placing fourth among 29 in the seeded section of the triple jump with a mark of 12.26 meters (40 feet, 2 3/4 inches). It marked the third time in four tries that Smith – the owner of the league’s top triple jump, 12.46 meters (40-10 3/4) – has notched a top-six result in the event this outdoor season, and the second time she has leapt more than 40 feet. It was the third-best outdoor triple jump of the Atlanta native’s career.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With only seven Golden Eagles in action on Friday at the Louisville Lenny Lyles/Clark Wood Invitational, Na’Scottisha Drummond led Tennessee Tech’s relatively quiet day with a seventh-place finish in the long jump, while others posted new personal records and season bests. Drummond’s seventh-place nod out of 29 competitors was also a huge personal best for the Duncan, S.C. native, as she soared 5.81 meters (19 feet, 3/4 inches), nearly an entire foot further than her previous standard (5.53m, 18-1 3/4).
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – With the Ohio Valley Conference Outdoor Championships just two weeks away, Tennessee Tech track and field will undergo its final preparative step this weekend when it travels to Louisville for the Lenny Lyles/Clark Wood Invitational. The Friday-Saturday meet will be held at UL’s Track and Soccer Stadium inside Cardinal Park, with the first TTU athletes competing at 3 p.m. CT Friday afternoon and 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – For the second time this outdoor season, Tennessee Tech track and field standouts Khemani Roberts and Purity Sanga reeled in a sweep of the Ohio Valley Conference Athlete of the Week awards. Released by the league office Wednesday, Roberts clinched her third Field Athlete of the Week honor of the outdoor season, while Sanga took home Track Athlete of the Week for the second time. Roberts turned heads on the national scale with her second-place heptathlon performance at the Virginia Challenge. Her score of 5,482 points is the best in TTU history, surpassing the previous mark of 5,353 points that she also held. The total ranks eighth on the NCAA Division I East Outdoor Qualifying List and 21st on the NCAA Division I Combined List, and tops the OVC Outdoor Performance List by a whopping 693 points.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Khemani Roberts and Purity Sanga continued their impressive outdoor seasons for Tennessee Tech track and field, as Roberts reset her own program mark in the heptathlon, and Sanga added another No. 1 time to her Ohio Valley Conference resume on Saturday at the Virginia Challenge. Following an outstanding first day that saw her score 3,353 points over four events, Roberts responded with 2,129 points over the final three on Saturday for a new Tech record 5,482. Roberts took second place out of 17 entrants with that total, and finished just 199 points behind the winner, Jordan Gray of Kennesaw State.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – While it was only a small contingent of Golden Eagles competing on Friday at the Virginia Challenge, the group certainly left its mark. Raven Smith took second place with an outdoor-school-record triple jump, and heptathlete Khemani Roberts sits in second place after four events, keyed by a school record and victory in the high jump and another victory in the 200 meters. Smith soared 12.46 meters (40 feet, 10 1/2 inches) on the second of her six-jump series to reset her own outdoor program record and notch the runner-up finish. The mark was almost three inches better than her previous standard in the Tech record book, a 12.39-meter jump (40-7 1/2) from last year’s Ohio Valley Conference Championships.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – Five Tennessee Tech track and field athletes will be back in action following a week off from competition, as Na’Scottisha Drummond, Khemani Roberts, Purity Sanga, Raven Smith and Ceirra Tate have all met the marks to be invited to this weekend’s Virginia Challenge. The two-day meet, which perennially hosts some of the nation’s top talent, will be held at the University of Virginia’s Lannigan Field on Friday and Saturday, April 19-20.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Khemani Roberts has been among the elite track and field athletes in the Ohio Valley Conference so far this outdoor season, a fact validated by the league office on Wednesday when it named the senior its Co-Field Athlete of the Week for the second time in three weeks. In addition to being her second of the outdoor season, the weekly honor is the Trinidad and Tobago native’s third in 2018-19 (one indoor) and fifth of her Tech career (three outdoor, two indoor).
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Tennessee Tech track and field got back to business in a big way on Saturday at the Western Kentucky Hilltopper Relays, led by a school-record performance and two runner-up finishes from jumper/sprinter Khemani Roberts, and several other Golden Eagle marks that have assumed high ranks on the Ohio Valley Conference Outdoor Performance List. “I was very pleased with our level of intensity today,” said 2018-19 OVC Indoor Coach of the Year Wayne Angel. “We competed like we meant business, and we produced a school record, personal bests and conference-leading performances.”
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – After dividing its forces for a pair of Power 5 conference meets last weekend, and seeing another program record fall courtesy of Purity Sanga, the Tennessee Tech track and field team will reunite for a single-day competition at Western Kentucky on Saturday, as they take part in the Hilltopper Relays from WKU’s Charles M. Reuter Track and Field Complex. Tech’s day will begin at 9 a.m. CT on Saturday morning when Abby Mink looks to record her first collegiate mark in the discus throw.
RALEIGH, N.C. and GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Purity Sanga added another item to her sensational 2018-19 track and field season, crushing the Tennessee Tech outdoor 10,000-meter record by 12 seconds with a time of 34-minutes, 13.02-seconds at the N.C. State Raleigh Relays. Sanga’s time bested Micayla Rennick’s previous Tech standard of 34:25.22 set at the 2018 Virginia Challenge. The sophomore from Kenya added further credence to her title as one of the best distance runners in the nation, as her mark is currently the ninth-fastest by a Division I athlete this season.
RALEIGH, N.C. and GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For the first time this season, Tennessee Tech track and field will separate its personnel to tackle two meets in the same weekend, each hosted by a Power 5-conference institution. One Golden Eagle delegation will compete Friday at the N.C. State Raleigh Relays, while the other will be bound for action on Friday and Saturday at the Pepsi Florida Relays.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Some things change, others don’t. While the Tennessee Tech track and field team has now moved to the outdoor portion of its schedule, its trend of raking in Athlete of the Week awards from the Ohio Valley Conference has continued, as both Khemani Roberts and Purity Sanga were recognized by the league office Wednesday afternoon as Co-Field Athlete and Co-Track Athlete of the Week, respectively. The awards add to Tech’s impressive total over the 2018-19 indoor and outdoor seasons, bringing the overall count to a whopping nine over seven regular-season meets.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Khemani Roberts was the top performer on Saturday for Tennessee Tech track and field, notching a third-place high jump finish, as the Golden Eagles wrapped up their first meet of the 2019 outdoor season at the Vanderbilt Black and Gold Invitational. Roberts elevated over the bar at 1.71 meters (5 feet, 7 1/4 inches) to place third out of 19 athletes, finishing behind only Carly Hinkle and Ellen Ekholm of Kentucky, the No. 7-ranked team in the country according to the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches’ Association. Hinkle won the event, passing over 1.81 meters on her second attempt. The effort was Roberts’ fourth best in her outdoor career at Tech, and was just two and a half inches shy of her personal record. It also marked her fourth career top-five finish in the event while out in the elements.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Ohio Valley Conference Female Indoor Track Athlete of the Year Purity Sanga got off to an excellent start to her outdoor season Friday evening, running the 1,500 meters in 4-minutes, 26.32-seconds for second place at the Vanderbilt Black and Gold Invitational. Sanga missed the overall victory by the slimmest of margins, coming in just two hundredths of a second behind Grace Jensen of Vanderbilt (4:26.30). Sanga’s mark stood out among the field of 76 runners, and was an encouraging improvement on her previous best of 4:37.93. She must cut off roughly five and a half seconds to catch Micayla Rennick’s program standard of 4:20.92.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – For the Tennessee Tech track and field team, it's on to the next one. Just over a month removed from their second straight Ohio Valley Conference indoor championship, the Golden Eagles will try to accomplish the same feat with back-to-back outdoor titles, as they begin their six-meet regular season schedule with the Vanderbilt Black and Gold Invitational on Friday and Saturday, March 22-23. The events will get started at 4 p.m. CT on Day 1, and 10 a.m. on Saturday morning from the Vanderbilt Track in Nashville.
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – For as much winning as she’s done on the track in her two seasons at Tennessee Tech, Khemani Roberts has also been a winner in the classroom, and a key piece of the leadership core for Golden Eagle track and field. Roberts will now add another victory to her resume, as she has been named the TTU Athletics Golden Eagle Unsung Leader for the month of February. Roberts punctuated her indoor season by competing in 10 different events at the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Championships on Feb. 20-21. Five of those events were included in her gold-medal pentathlon performance, where she dominated the field with a school-record 3,954 points.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Trailing upset-minded Murray State with three events remaining, the Tennessee Tech track and field team needed a crucial lift in crunch time to keep its hopes of a second straight Ohio Valley Conference indoor championship alive.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – After the first day of action at the Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships, it would appear that the defending champion Tennessee Tech track and field team arrived at the Birmingham CrossPlex on a mission: to add another piece of hardware to the trophy case. Through just five scored events on Wednesday, the Golden Eagles have totaled 41 points, and hold a 10-point lead on Southeast Missouri, who currently occupies the No. 2 spot. Again, with just five events completed, Tech has already racked up three gold medals and one silver medal.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The time has finally come for the Tennessee Tech track and field team. The most important two days of the season are here. After winning its first ever Ohio Valley Conference indoor championship last season, which included seven individual event winners, Tech has worn the bull’s-eye on its back through the six regular-season meets of the 2018-19 campaign. Now, the time to once again prove league supremacy has arrived. On Wednesday and Thursday, inside the state-of-the-art Birmingham CrossPlex, head coach Wayne Angel’s Golden Eagles have the opportunity to become the OVC’s first repeat indoor champions since 2012.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – For the second time this season, Lisa Wickham has been recognized as the Ohio Valley Conference Co-Female Track Athlete of the Week, as she continued her outstanding indoor season at last week’s Samford Bulldog Open. Wickham’s honor marks the fifth week in a row – Tech’s entire indoor campaign – that a Golden Eagle has won or shared an Athlete of the Week honor from the conference.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Just 11 days away from attempting to repeat as Ohio Valley Conference indoor champions, the Tennesssee Tech track and field team made the most of its final opportunity to get ready, posting high marks across the board at the Samford Bulldog Open. “We performed well this weekend,” said head coach Wayne Angel. “Overall, I thought we competed at a high level.”
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – One meet stands between the Tennessee Tech track and field team and its defense as Ohio Valley Conference indoor champions. That meet, which will feature four league opponents and be held in the same venue as the OVC showdown, is the Samford Bulldog Open. The state-of-the-art Birmingham Metro CrossPlex will be the site, offering a sneak peek of the setting for the league’s biggest battle on Feb. 20-21.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Khemani Roberts’ dominant pentathlon performance from the Purdue Fred Wilt Open was commended by the Ohio Valley Conference Wednesday, when it named the senior all-around star its Female Field Athlete of the Week. The award marks an astonishing fourth week in a row that the Golden Eagle track and field team has had one of its members recognized by the league office.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A day after Khemani Roberts shined in the pentathlon, the Tennessee Tech track and field team recorded a quartet of top-five finishes on Saturday at the Purdue Fred Wilt Open, including a 4x400-meter relay victory, and another from Na’Scottisha Drummond in the high jump. “I was very pleased from top to bottom with our performances today,” said head coach Wayne Angel. “We came here to compete and that’s exactly what we did.” “For the most part, we had a strong presence in all the events that we competed in,” Angel said. “That, coupled with some strong individual performances, made for a great day.”
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Senior Khemani Roberts dominated in women’s pentathlon during the Tennessee Tech women’s indoor track and field team’s first day of the Fred Wilt Open, claiming first-place finishes in three of the five events and second-place marks in the other two. Roberts finished the pentathlon with a total of 3,791 points, just shy of her personal best and Tech school record of 3,834, recorded at last year’s Ohio Valley Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships at Eastern Illinois. Fellow senior Eshe’ Robinson also had a strong performance, finishing fourth overall behind two competitors from host Purdue. Robinson concluded the event with 2,835 points, trailing her personal best of 3,038 in the 2017 OVC meet.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Lisa Wickham reigned supreme in the 60 meters, Raven Smith broke the Tennessee Tech indoor triple jump record, and other Golden Eagles recorded new personal bests, as the TTU track and field team took another step forward on Saturday at the Indiana Relays. “The ladies were exceptional today,” said coach Wayne Angel. “They represented Tennessee Tech in grand style, and I am so proud of everyone. They all competed with a high level of intensity.” Wickham matched her performance from Friday, running the 60 in 7.50 seconds to claim the title. In a finals section that featured four Power 5 athletes, Wickham was head-and-shoulders above the rest, crossing the line nearly one tenth of a second before anyone else (runner-up was 7.59).
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – While it wasn’t the first time for either athlete, Khemani Roberts and Purity Sanga added their names to the Tennessee Tech record book on Friday at the Indiana Relays, establishing new program standards in the long jump and the 5,000 meters, respectively. The two performances happened in consecutive events, with Roberts’ 5.69-meter (18 feet, 8 inches) long jump coming first. Roberts’ mark eclipses Sharnique Leonce’s leap of 5.64 meters from last year’s Arkansas Tyson Invitational, which was the previous TTU best. Roberts now owns the top Tech marks for both the indoor and outdoor long jump, in addition to six other events.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – A trip across the Ohio River is next up for the Tennessee Tech track and field team, as their indoor season rolls on with another prestigious meet, the Indiana Relays, on Friday and Saturday. Indiana’s Gladstein Fieldhouse will be the site for the two-day competition, with the events starting at 4 p.m. CT on Friday, and 8 a.m. on Saturday morning.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Lisa Wickham’s name is already in the Tennessee Tech track and field record book for the 60-meter dash, but on Saturday afternoon at the Vanderbilt Invitational she broke her own mark, running the 60 in 7.40 seconds. “Lisa did an incredible job today,” said head coach Wayne Angel. “She was obviously very well prepared, and she brought her best while running alongside some of the best in the country in the 60 meters. Extremely proud of what she was able to do.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Na’Scottisha Drummond excelled against premiere competition on Friday at the Vanderbilt Invitational, as she recorded Tech’s highest finish of the day, second place in the high jump. Drummond was clearly determined to begin her performance, as she passed over the bar at 1.60 and 1.65 meters on her first attempt at each. Then, the bar moved to 1.70 meters, a height the Duncan, S.C. native had never cleared before in an indoor setting.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech track and field team has already been to Vanderbilt once this season, but their second trip will likely have a different, more intense feel. Tech will have to bring its best this time around, as it will line up against several of the nation’s top programs during the Commodore Invitational this Friday and Saturday.
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech track and field team has generated some early momentum in its quest to defend as indoor champions of the Ohio Valley Conference, as two athletes were recognized by the league office on Wednesday morning for their performances at the Kentucky Jim Green Invitational last weekend. Purity Sanga and Raven Smith were named Female Track Athlete of the Week and Co-Female Field Athlete of the Week, respectively.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – A handful of Tennessee Tech track and field athletes took part in the high jump on the first day of Kentucky’s Jim Green Invitational on Friday afternoon, with Khemani Roberts’ fifth place finish highlighting the results. Roberts easily cleared the bar at 1.61 meters and 1.66 meters, before getting over the 1.71-meter mark on her third and final attempt to put herself in the top five.
LEXINGTON, Ky. – The Tennessee Tech track and field team has been away from competition for six weeks after kicking off its season at the Vanderbilt Indoor Opener, but will return to action this weekend at Kentucky’s Nutter Field House for the Jim Green Invitational on Friday and Saturday.
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The full 2019 schedule for the defending indoor and outdoor Ohio Valley Conference champion Tennessee Tech track and field team is now set. The slate features six daunting regular-season indoor meets, five outdoor dates that should prove to be equally as challenging, as well as the information for both the indoor and outdoor OVC Championship and NCAA Championship meets.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The defending Ohio Valley Conference champion Tennessee Tech women’s track and field team approached the Vanderbilt Indoor Opener the same way that many programs go into their first meet of the season: to see the gains they have made in the offseason. “We did well today for it being the first meet of the year,” said coach Wayne Angel. “We had a lot of our athletes competing in their ‘off-events’, just to see how they are progressing in their growth and training. Overall, I thought it was very positive from that standpoint.” Aside from the fact that winning was not at the top of the Golden Eagles list of priorities on Saturday, they still managed to produce a slew of top finishes, and saw many of their freshman members turn in impressive debuts.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – After earning the first two Ohio Valley Conference titles in school history a season ago, fifth-year head coach Wayne Angel leads his Tennessee Tech women’s track and field team into the first stop on their journey to repeat as champions, when they take part in the Vanderbilt Indoor Opener on Saturday morning beginning at 10 a.m. Angel, a three-time OVC Coach of the Year who claimed the honor for both indoor and outdoor in 2018, saw individual conference champions crowned in eight different events last indoor season, and another seven during the outdoor campaign.