Cavaliers Open 2011 Outdoor Season at Raleigh Relays and Fred Hardy Invite

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia track and field team will open the 2011 outdoor season this weekend, heading to the Raleigh Relays in North Carolina, while a group of women’s distance runners will also compete in Richmond, Va., at the Fred Hardy Invitational on Saturday. The Raleigh Relays are scheduled to run on Friday and Saturday.

Live results for the Raleigh Relays and a live video web stream of the track events at Richmond will be available at VirginiaSports.com.

The Cavaliers are coming off a successful indoor season, which saw six student-athletes earn All-America honors. Virginia’s distance medley relay of junior Morgane Gay and seniors Ayla Smith, Lyndsay Harper and Stephanie Garcia earned All-America honors at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 11. The quartet was the first women’s DMR squad to qualify for NCAAs and earned a third-place finish in 10:59.79. Their season-best time of 10:59.33 stands as Virginia’s all-time program record.

On the men’s side, senior Adams Abdulrazaaq and redshirt junior Marcus Robinson earned second-team All-America honors at the NCAA Championships. Abdulrazaaq became the first Cavalier hurdler to advance to indoor nationals and finished 12th in the 60m hurdles with a time of 7.85. The ACC runner-up, Abdulrazaaq owns the all-time program record with his personal-best time of 7.75 from the Hokie Invitational on January 21.

Robinson, the ACC Champion in the triple jump this year, became the third Cavalier triple jumper to advance to NCAAs and the first since Greg Byers in 1984. He finished 11th at the national meet with a leap of 52′ 5.75″. His personal-best jump of 52′ 8″ ranks second at UVa.

Following this weekend, Virginia will return home and remain in the state for the Liberty Invitational in Lynchburg and the Colonial Relays in Williamsburg. Both meets are scheduled to run Friday and Saturday, April 1-2.