CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Virginia Tech men’s track & field team won its first ever outdoor Atlantic Coast Conference championship as it held off seven-time defending champion Florida State as competition concluded Saturday at the 2012 ACC Outdoor Track & Field Championship at Lannigan Field on the campus of the University of Virginia. The Hokie women tied for fourth as senior All-American Will Mulherin won an ACC title in the 5000 meters for Tech’s men Saturday, giving the Hokies seven individual champions (five men, two women) for the meet.
“This is really special. Florida State has such a great program, great athletes and great coaches and they set the standard very high for this conference,” said Tech director of track & field and cross country Dave Cianelli. “To be able to win an outdoor conference championship for the first time is definitely special for our program.”
The Hokies won the ACC title with 153.5 points, 4.5 points clear of second place FSU (149). Virginia (113) was third, followed by North Carolina (94.5), Clemson (78), Duke (59), NC State (58), Maryland (31), Wake Forest (28), Georgia Tech (26), Miami (22) and Boston College (4).
“I knew the men had a good opportunity here, but we would really have to come together to win,” commented Cianelli. “After we didn’t perform as well as we would have liked at the indoor conference meet in Boston, I think the guys got together and committed themselves to come here and give a great effort.”
Entering the final event of the day, the 4x400 meter relay, Tech lead Florida State by 6.5 points and the Hokies relay of junior Jonathan McCants, junior Jeff Artis-Gray, senior Eric Hoepker and senior All-American Keith Ricks clinched the team title for as they were fifth in 3:12.70.
“Both teams (Virginia Tech and Florida State) were having a great meet event-by-event and we knew it was going to be tight there at the end,” continued Cianelli. “Fortunately, we had a little cushion going into that 4x4 relay and we were able to pull it off.”
The women’s tie for fourth place was their best finish at the outdoor conference meet since 2009, when they placed second. Clemson won the women’s ACC title with 185 points. Virginia was second (100) and was followed by Florida State (75), Virginia Tech and Duke (74), North Carolina (69), Miami (61), NC State (58), Maryland (49), Georgia Tech (32), Boston College (26) and Wake Forest (13).
Mulherin won his third ACC title in the outdoor 5000 meters running a time of 14:03.26, thus becoming the first man in ACC history to win the outdoor 5k title three times. Freshman Thomas Curtin followed in sixth (14:13.33), adding three big team points for Tech.
The men’s 4x100 meter relay of Artis-Gray, sophomore Darrell Wesh, McCants and Ricks started the day off well for Tech as they finished second in a school record time of 39.95.
Senior All-American Michael Hammond (3:41.50) and classmate Chris Walizer (3:44.80) finished second and third, respectively, in the men’s 1500 meters, scoring 14 team points for Tech. Hammond’s time ranks in the top-10 in Division I entering the weekend. Senior All-American Hasheem Halim was third in the triple jump with a season-best mark of 53-1 (16.18m).
Wesh was third in the 100 meters in a personal best tying 10.27, while Ricks was fourth in 10.29. Ricks turned in a third place showing in the 200 meters (20.82), as Wesh was sixth (21.49) and McCants seventh (21.90). Artis-Gray also finished in a tie to the thousandths for sixth place in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 14.16. Junior Tihut Degfae finished seventh in the men’s 800 meters in 1:51.70.
For the women, junior Yvonne Amegashie was runner-up in the 400 meters, running a personal best 53.25, good for second all-time in Tech history.
The women’s 4x1 relay of junior Jameice DeCoster, freshman Ciara Simms, senior Aunye Boone and senior Ogechi Nwaneri ran 45.50 to place third. The women’s 4x4 relay of Amegashie, Boone, DeCoster and junior Natalie Woodford placed fourth in 3:41.28.
Simms ran 11.68 in the 100 meters, good for fifth place, while Nwaneri was eighth in 11.99. Nwaneri doubled back to finish sixth in the 200 meters (24.53).
Sophomore Paige Kvartunas finished fifth in the women’s 1500 meters (4:33.05), while freshman Sarah Rapp finished eighth in the women’s 5k in 16:55.02. Freshman Leah Nugent finished seventh in the 100 meter hurdles (14.05) and eighth in the 400 meter hurdles (1:04.30).
“This meet ranks right at the top, in terms of excitement, that I have experienced in my 30 years of coaching,” concluded Cianelli. “To put a group of people together – coaches, student-athletes, staff – it takes a lot of people to be able to do something like this and a lot of them don’t get the credit that they deserve.”
Fans can get all the information for the 2012 ACC Outdoor Track & Field Championships at: http://bit.ly/2012ACCOTF
Tech returns to action next weekend as they split between the historic Penn Relays and two meets in California - Cal’s Brutus Hamilton Invitational and Stanford’s Payton Jordan Invitational.