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SOUTH BEND, Ind. – Virginia’s distance medley relay team of freshman Sintayehu Taye, sophomore Meikle Paschal, freshman Lance Roller and senior Andrew Jesien shattered the program’s all-time record Friday evening at the Alex Wilson Invitational on the University of Notre Dame’s campus, en route to meeting the automatic qualifying time needed to automatically compete in next weekend’s NCAA Indoor Championships and a first-place finish in the relay.
The Cavaliers topped the other 14 automatic qualifying marks by other schools in the event to finish first in 9:29.86, breaking the old record of 9:36.51 set by Kellen Blassingame, McGavock Dunbar, Jordan Orr and Alex Tatu in 2005. Three other school’s had teams meet the provisional mark, while all 18 relays that completed the race, hit at least the provisional qualifying standard.
Taye (Portland, Maine) opened the relay completing the 1200m in 2:54 and passed off to Paschal (Lexington, Mass.) who ran a 400m in 46.7 before Roller (Cortlandt Manor, N.Y.) ran an 800m in 1:50. Jesien (Bethesda, Md.) kicked in the final mile with a sub-four minute performance. The Cavaliers’ combined time would currently rank them fourth-nationally.
Also competing at the meet was sophomore ACC Champion Ryan Collins in the 5000m. Collins hit the provisional mark in the event, finishing third in 14:05.28. The time marks the second fastest time a Cavalier has ever run, second to only Kris Herdt’s 14:02.00 performance in 1989.
Virginia will continue competition tomorrow, with some Cavaliers competing at the Alex Wilson Invitational and others will compete at the Virginia Tech Last Chance meet in Blacksburg, Va.