Over the weekend at the Milton G. Abramson/Lou Onesty Invitational, the Virginia track and field team won eight titles and had three athletes qualify to compete at Regionals.
The Cavaliers hosted 1,200 athletes from more than 75 schools at Lannigan Field where events began Friday afternoon and concluded Saturday evening.
In the discus, Virginia excelled in both the men's and women's competitions. All-American sophomore Billie Jo Grant hit a season best mark of 53.57 meters to win the women's event. Freshman Yemi Ayeni won the men's contest, tossing for 51.42m. Both Grant and Yemi also competed in the shot-put, finishing third and sixth respectively. Grant threw for 14.37m and Yemi's 15.48m throw was a career-best.
Cavalier senior Rachel Marks became only the fourth high-jumper in school history to clear the 5-foot-11-inch mark. Her career-best performance not only secured her first place, but also made her the first ACC jumper to clear this height in 2006.
"As I got to the higher heights, my coach reaffirmed my belief in his support of me," Marks said. "I know coach Bungard was incredibly busy, but he still made it a priority to shuffle over to the high jump area to help me out."
Marks attributed part of her recent success to her new shorter approaches. For her entire collegiate career, Marks had been using a 10-step approach. Two weeks ago, when she qualified for Regionals in the high jump, she reduced the approach to seven steps; this past weekend, she increased it by two to nine steps.
"It is nice that my latest personal record was achieved on my home turf and that my mom was able to witness it," Marks said. "I know high jump is hard to watch -- it is long, tedious and boring -- but I really appreciate hearing my teammates, friends and family cheering for me."
In the women's triple jump, All-American junior Tomika Ferguson won with her 12.81m jump. At the NCAA indoor track and field championships back in March, Tomika took sixth overall, and she is looking to do equally as well, if not better, in the outdoor competition.
"Outdoor follows the same rules as indoor triple jump," Ferguson said. "The differences are the physical elements of wind, a major factor, and also temperature and weather."
Ferguson also competed in the women's long jump where she took fourth place and qualified for Regionals by hitting a personal best of 6.33m.
"It felt great to qualify for Regionals in the long jump," Ferguson said. "One, because last year I was nowhere close to qualifying, and two, because now I get to compete in two individual events. I am glad I finally jumped close to my potential."
In the women's 400m hurdles, junior Erin Crawford won with a time of 59.22. Junior Soeren Linder placed first in the men's steeplechase and posted the second fastest time in the ACC for that event, 9:11.08.
Both of the women's relays also claimed the top spots. The 4x100 meter relay finished with a time of 45.82, while the 4x400 meter relay finished in 3:41.98. Unfortunately for the team, the 4x100 relay just missed qualifying for Regionals by a little over .1 second.
"We had an advantage over some of the teams because it was our track," Ferguson said. "There were so many supporters at the meet who made the atmosphere very comfortable for competing, and much of the excitement from the team was from everyone feeding off of each other."
Virginia's only home meet was also the team's last chance to compete before heading to the ACC championships at Wake Forest this coming weekend.
Read More
Volleyball holds off Boston College in tight five-set win
By Lauren Halak | 22 hours agoSenior outside hitter Elayna Duprey led the team throughout the match with 22 points and 18 kills.
Virginia annihilated 41-14 in a must-win contest versus North Carolina
By Peter Kriebel | 2 days agoJust about everything that could have gone wrong for Virginia football went wrong.
No. 24 women’s soccer not to be denied in late win over Clemson
By Sam Chun | 2 days agoThe Cavaliers topped Clemson 1-0 in front of a packed out Klöckner Stadium.
