Cavalier Throwers Continue to Shine

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The record book for University of Virginia track & field requires regular updating, partly because of the prowess of the throwers with whom assistant coach Brandon Amo works.

The throws have long been one of the Cavaliers’ strengths, thanks to alums like Filip Mihaljevic, Hilmar Jonsson, Jordan Young, Ethan Dabbs and Claudio Romero, and head coach Vin Lananna wants that to continue. And that's helped Amo build a powerful group.

“UVA has every resource possible to be the best or one of the best throws programs in the country,” Amo said, “and I think teaching the kids the history and the tradition of the people that have come before them is really what upholds the standard that we're trying to set here.”

Indoors, there are two throwing events: the weight throw and the shot put. On the women’s side, Charlotta Sandkulla and Bree Lumpkin rank Nos. 1 and 3, respectively, all-time at Virginia in the weight throw, and Brooke Lumpkin (Bree’s twin) and Janae Profit are Nos. 2 and 9 in the shot put.

For the UVA men, Jeremiah Nubbe, Nikolaos Polychroniou and Keyandre Davis rank No. 1, 2 and 3 all-time, respectively, in the weight throw, and Cale Ayers is No. 7.

Outdoors, throwers compete in the shot put, the discus, the hammer throw and the javelin, and current Cavaliers are sprinkled among the top-10 lists for those events, too.

Brooke Lumpkin and Profit rank Nos. 4 and 5 all-time, respectively, in the women’s shot put. Profit is No. 5 in the discus. Sandkulla, Bree Lumpkin, Aixa Corbacho and Theresa Breckley are Nos. 1, 4, 6 and 10, respectively, in the hammer throw, and Christiana Ellina ranks No. 3 and Abigail Meckes No. 10 in the javelin.

On the men’s side, Alex Jackson and Jakob Alperin rank Nos. 9 and 10, respectively, in the shot put. Nubbe is No. 7 all-time in the discus and No. 2 in the hammer throw. Davis, Ayers and Mark Cyr rank Nos. 5, 7 and 10, respectively, in the hammer throw, and Jayden McKeen is No. 7 in the javelin.

“At Virginia, there’s been a long tradition of good throwers,” Lananna said. “Certainly this is not a new thing. So the breaking into the top 10 is [a big deal].  It’s not like they were bad performances [in the record book].”

𝘼𝘾𝘾 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠 𝙃𝙤𝙤𝙤𝙤𝙤𝙤𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙮𝙮𝙮𝙮

2026 ACC Outdoor Championships🔜#GoHoos pic.twitter.com/fDyM2oY0Qq

— Virginia Track & Field and Cross Country (@UVATFCC) May 11, 2026

The ACC Outdoor Championships start Thursday and run through Saturday in Louisville, Ky. The UVA men won the ACC title in 2024, and the Cavalier women were crowned champions last spring. Both teams expect to fare well in Louisville, and they’re counting on big efforts from their throwers.

It’s a close-knit group in which the men and women train alongside each other at different times.

“We have a morning group, afternoon group, and then later-in-the-day group,” Amo said. “But we all lift together, so there’s a good team environment.”

As throws coach, Amo said, he’s responsible for articulating a vision for the group. “But then when you have elite-level people on your team and high-level athletes, they're the ones that feed off of all of that and then kind of create this environment where every single day we come to practice, we're going to work hard. Whether you feel tired or you're upset or you're sick, you're still going to do all of these things. And I think in the throws group, with the number that we have and the size that we have, everyone on the team has someone to train with. And days you feel tired or sick or upset, you're like, ‘Oh, wow, there's a lot of people here that are helping to push me forward.’

“So I think team dynamic and team culture is everything. Obviously, you might not see that a lot in the sport of track & field, where it's individualized, but I think having a strong training partner makes the difference.”

Nubbe, who transferred from the University of Texas to UVA in summer of 2024, has thrived in this environment. At the NCAA indoor meet, he placed fourth in the weight throw in 2025. He finished second at NCAAs this year.

Before coming to Virginia, Nubbe said, he hadn’t been part of a large and talented training group. “So being a part of a group where there's excellence both on the men's and the women's side and there's excellence, not just in one individual but as a whole and as a group, definitely pushes you to practice and train at a higher level on a daily basis.

“I think the standard of excellence increases with the group as you get more and more people that are good at what they do and care about training and being the best that they can.”

In high school and at Texas, Nubbe said, he usually trained for his events by himself, and that wasn’t ideal.

“When you're struggling or maybe not figuring things out, you don't really have anyone to compare yourself to,” he said. “And so sometimes you're like, ‘Is this a me problem or is this a coaching problem? What’s going on? I have no frame of reference.’ So having other people around who may also be feeling the same way, you can relate to them and ground yourself when you're going through the rough spots.”

A freshman from Finland, Sandkulla said she enjoys “having good throwers around” her. More important than her teammates’ talent, though, is their work ethic, she said. “That’s actually what keeps me also going.”

Sandkulla attended Novia University of Applied Sciences in her native Finland in 2024-25, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to compete in track & field as a United States college student.

“The whole U.S. university [system], the whole NCAA, was very new to me,” she said. “But I heard so much good about Coach Amo, and I knew that if I go with him, I'm in good hands.

“It was a long process, and I was like, ‘Should I go? Should I not?’ Every day was a different opinion on it. But I came on a visit and I really liked it.”

She connected immediately not only with Amo, but with the student-athletes on the team. “It was not about their performances,” Sandkulla said, “it was more about the people that they were. And everybody seemed like humble, nice, and I didn't see a lot of big egos here. And I could really see myself being in this group and that I would fit in.”

Hammer Hoos 💪#GoHoos https://t.co/GR9MDW94QW

— Virginia Track & Field and Cross Country (@UVATFCC) April 24, 2026

Amo said he believes Sandkulla and Corbacho, a freshman from Spain, could one day represent their countries at the Olympics.

“They're both still super young,” he said, “but they’re definitely kind of our rising stars on the women’s throws group.”

The members of that group “work really well together,” Amo said. “I think that's really the big thing about the culture that they have. They hold each other accountable, and all the kids want to be really good, so there's not a lack of motivation in the group. I think a lot of times, at other programs or other places, you have to motivate the kids. Here they’re very, very motivated.”

On the men’s side, Nubba missed the ACC and NCAA outdoor meets with an injury last year.

“It was definitely a big blow for the team,” Amo said, “and, I think, a big blow for the leadership aspect of our throws group. But I think that it left room for Keyandre Davis to kind of blossom and develop and really take a leadership role. And then really pushed them both during indoor season this year.”

Davis, who’s from Big Stone Gap in Southwest Virginia, began his college career at USC Upstate. A second-team All-American in the hammer throw last spring, he placed fourth in the weight throw at the NCAA indoor meet this year.

Polychroniou, who’s from Greece, is a graduate transfer from the University of Southern California, where he was a two-time first-team All-American. In his first indoor season as a Cavalier, he won the ACC title in the weight throw.

“He’s a guy that I think he really saw the culture here, what we're building and really saw Jeremiah's development, really saw Keyandre's development,” Amo said.

That’s helped recruiting, Amo said. “I think that we have athletes that are now coming in and saying it's an honor to wear the navy and orange and represent what I believe to be historically the best throwers in the ACC.”

Lananna said Amo has been instrumental in the group’s success. Amo came to UVA from Harvard, where as an assistant coach in 2022-23 he worked with Kenneth Ikeji and Stephanie Ratcliffe, who won NCAA champion titles in the men’s and women’s hammer throw, respectively.

In the summer of 2023, Lananna needed a new throws coach, “and I thought that with our tradition here at Virginia, I'll try to find this young, enthusiastic coach. Brandon was every bit that ... He's passionate about the throws, but he's also actually conversant in the sprints and hurdles and jumps and everything else. Quite frankly, he's a winner. I think that what we have on our staff is people who are winners, and if you want to win and you're willing to roll up your sleeves and get it done, we have great kids here.”

Amo agreed. “I could talk about it forever,” he said. “I’m really blessed and fortunate with the kids that we have here. And a lot of it stems from Coach Vin really having a vision of wanting us to have an elite-level throws program. I feel like the culture is really, really good, and a lot of coaches can't say that.”

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