Cavaliers Head to NCAA East Preliminaries Thursday
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.-The Virginia men’s and women’s track and field team travels south to the NCAA East Preliminaries at Hodges Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday through Saturday (May 24-26). Twenty-nine Cavaliers, 18 men and 11 women, will be competing in 21 events.
Live results and a webcast of the meet will be available and linked through VirginiaSports.com. Each individual event will have 48 student-athletes competing, while the relay events have 24 schools in action. The field will be narrowed down to the top 12, who will move on to the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Des Moines, Iowa on June 6-9.
Senior Andy Fahringer (Whitehall, Pa.) will start off the competition in the men’s javelin on Thursday at 11 a.m. At 1 p.m., freshman Nick Vena (Morristown, N.J.) will take part in the men’s discus. Vena was ACC Champion in both the discus and the shot put.
At 4:30 p.m., the running events begin with the men’s 400-meter hurdles, in which freshman Devin Brewer (Dumfries, Va.) will compete. At the same time, sophomore Abbey Karin (Byfield, Mass.) will take part in the women’s javelin.
An hour later, the men’s 1,500 meters will see three Cavalier juniors compete, including Taylor Gilland (Chapel Hill, N.C.), Brett Johnson (Ocean City, N.J.) and Patrick Todd (Highland Park, Texas). Junior Morgane Gay (Bethesda, Md.) will run in the women’s 1,500 meters at 6 p.m.
Freshman Jordan Lavender (Nashville, Tenn.) is scheduled to run the women’s 400 meters at 7:45 p.m., while ACC Champion senior Lance Roller (Cortland Manor, N.Y.) and sophomore Anthony Kostelac (Charlottesville, Va.) will compete in the men’s 800 meters at 8:10 p.m.
In the final events of the first day, junior Sean Keveren (Brentwood, Tenn.) and senior Catherine White (Roanoke, Va.) will run in the men’s and women’s 10,000 meters at 9 and 9:40 p.m., respectively.
On Friday, senior Vincenzo Chiariello (Staten Island, N.Y.) starts off the day with the men’s hammer at 10 a.m., while classmate and ACC Champ Erin Wykoff (St. Jacob, Ill.) takes part in the women’s discus at 3 p.m.
At 4:30 p.m., ACC Champion senior Marcus Robinson (Richmond, Va.) and freshman Ryan Satchell (Central Islip, N.Y.) will compete in the triple jump and junior Pearl Bickersteth (Dumfries, Va.) and sophomore Emily Kianka (Pennington, N.J.) will be in action in the women’s high jump at 5 p.m.
Sophomore Bryan Lewis (Roanoke, Va.) will run in the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase at 9 p.m.
On Sunday, senior Maureen Laffan (Toms River, N.J.) will begin the Cavalier action at 2 p.m., in the women’s hammer throw, while junior Dallas Rose (Pearland, Texas) will compete in the women’s high jump at 4:30 p.m. Vena will compete in his second event of the competition, the men’s shot put, at 5 p.m.
In the running events, Keveren will double up and run with sophomore Thomas Porter (Fredericksburg, Va.) and freshman Kyle King (Yorktown, Va.) in the men’s 5,000 meters at 8:05 p.m. In the women’s 5k, freshmen Chelsea Ley (Woolwich Township, N.J.) and Kathleen Stevens (Blacksburg, Va.) will compete at 8:45 p.m.
In the final action for Virginia at the meet, the men’s 4x400m relay will run at 9:25 p.m. The team of senior Kevin Anding (Houston, Texas), sophomore Ozzie Bryan (Philadelphia, Pa.), Roller and freshman Payton Hazzard (Huntington, N.Y.) won the ACC title.