Hokies head to Raleigh Relays

Raleigh Relays
March 30-31, 2013
Paul Derr Track
Raleigh, N.C.
Live Results: http://www.flashresults.com/2013_Meets/outdoor/03-29-RaleighRelays/

A look at the meet
• While most of the team will take this week off, the Hokie distance teams will head to NC State for the annual Raleigh Relays one of the largest outdoor meets held on the east coast.
• Both the men’s and women’s teams have entrants in the 400 meters, 1500 meters and 5,000 meters, while the men’s also has entries in the 10,000 meters. Decathlete Matt Hoogland is also traveling with the teams and plans to compete in the 400 meters, discus and javelin.
• Events begin at 8:45 a.m., on Friday and 9:30 a.m., on Saturday.

Last time out
• The Virginia Tech track & field team returned to the Sunshine State for the second straight week and it was another successful trip as they Ronnie Black, Sarah Kadelka, Jonathan McCants and Denis Mahmic have all recorded wins at the 34th Annual FSU Relays at Mike Long Track.
• Mahmic opened up his final outdoor season as Hokie with a win in the hammer throw after his third toss sailed 203-7 (62.05m). The mark was nearly 24 feet clear of second place. Not to be outdone, mid-year transfer from Germany, Kadelka kicked off her Tech career with a bang as she captured the top spot in the women’s javelin. With four throws already being good enough for the win, the sophomore stepped up and hit a mark of 152-07 (46.50m) on her final throw which jumps to second all-time at Tech.
• In the men’s high jump, Black won his second-consecutive competition of the outdoor season as he topped Clemson’s Torian Ware. After missing once at 1.96 meters, the senior rattled off four straight clearances before his next miss. He rebounded and cleared 7-0.25 (2.14m), two heights above Ware’s final mark, on his second attempt before calling it a day.
• On the track, McCants paced the Hokie men in the 200 meters. The senior captured the win after clocking in at 21.14 while Darrell Wesh wasn’t too far behind him in fourth at 21.32. Freshman Tadashi Pinder finished just inside the top 10 at ninth with a time of 21.65. Also, the men’s 4x100 relay team of McCants, Pinder, Wesh and Jeff Artis-Gray came in second as they shaved more than a second and a half off of last week’s time to come in at 40.20. The slight drop in time moved the group nearly 50 spots on the NCAA’s list this season as they jumped into the top 10.
• The women’s sprint squad also saw solid performances from both Leah Nugent and Yvonne Amegashie. Nugent came in third in the 100-meter hurdles at 14.03 as only two competitors broke the 14 second mark. In the 400 meters, Amegashie came in fourth clocking in at 53.96, three-hudredths of a second outside the third spot and just over four tenths out of first.

Different season, same results
• Week one of the outdoor season proved to be much of the same for Ronnie Black and Martina Schultze. After finishing fourth and third respectively in their events at the indoor championships, Black started off the outdoor season with the second-best jump nationally after the first week while Schultze is tied for first in the pole vault.
• In the win, Schultze tied her school record with a vault of 14-1.25 (4.30m) while Black came up a half an inch shy of his school record with his clearance of 7-2.5 (2.20m).

Successful first impression
• In her first competition as a Hokie since joining the squad in January, Sarah Kadelka showed a glimpse of what she is capable of. The sophomore captured her first win at the Florida State Relays with a mark of 152-7 (46.50m) which ranks as the second-best throw in school history.

Say goodbye
• The Hokie men took a huge hit after the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships as the eligibility had run out for Michael Hammond, Will Mulherin and Alexander Ziegler. Including cross country, the trio had amassed 11 All-America honors, 20 All-ACC accolades, 12 ACC championships and three nationals championships. The three were also part of each of the program’s three track & field conference championships and Hammond and Mulherin were both on this year’s cross country ACC championship squad.
• The squad will also lose the services of Jason Cusack and Eric Hoepker. Cusack won the 3,000 meter steeplechase at the 2012 ACC Outdoor Championships and Hoepker was a part of the distance medley relay team that won the program’s first ACC crown in the event at the indoor championships.

Going out on top
• In the last competition of his career, Alexander Ziegler captured the NCAA weight throw title, the third NCAA championship of his career and first in the weight throw. On his third attempt in the second flight, Ziegler moved into the lead with a throw of 73-8.25 (22.46m), a mark that would not be passed during the finals. It ranked as the third-best throw in the NCAA this season and the second-best of his season. Only one other competitor eclipsed the 22-meter mark during the event.

Next man up
• Under Associate Head Coach and Throws Coach, Greg Jack, the Virginia Tech track & field program has built a reputation of being one of the top school’s for throwers, with his group accounting for 10 of the university’s 13 NCAA championships. With the departure of Alexander Ziegler, this will be the first season since 2009 that the Hokies will go into the season without a national champion on its roster as Marcel Lomnicky won his first NCAA crown in the hammer throw at the 2009 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
• In the fold for the men this season is freshman Denis Mahmic and freshman Tomas Kruzliak in the hammer throw. In the javelin, senior Matthias Treff will be joined by Jaka Muhar and Jens Merseburg.
• In his previous trips to the NCAA Championships, Treff has never finished outside the top three.

Throwing is throwing
• As a former javelin thrower in college, most would assume that Greg Jack would be known for producing top-flight javelin throwers, but since Spyridon Jullien came to Blacksburg, Jack’s athletes have amassed 10 national championships in the weight and hammer throws. With the departure of three-time national champion Alexander Ziegler, and an influx of javelin throwers this year, Jack is getting back to his roots as he now has five javelin throwers in a stable that includes school record holder Matthias Treff.

We own them all
• With their ACC indoor championship, the Hokie men now hold all three championships at the same time after winning the 2012 outdoor title last spring and the 2012 cross country title this fall. Clemson and Florida State are the only other school in the ACC to perform this feat since the ACC indoor championships resumed in 1987.

Contenders
• Since 2009, the men have not finished outside of the top three at the ACC Championships, scoring 95-plus points in each meet.
• The Hokie men captured their first ACC championship two years ago in Blacksburg, the last year Virginia Tech hosted the indoor championships after it moved to Boston last year. The Hokies won the meet running away, putting up 140 points, 42 ahead of second place Florida State.

Record Breakers
• Combined, the men’s and women’s teams have broken eight school records this season, some multiple times.
• Jeff Artis-Gray (60m hurdles) and Jonathan McCants (300m) each reset their school records on the first weekend of action at the VT Invitational.
• A week later, Ronnie Black topped his previous record in the high jump.
• On Feb. 9, Will Mulherin reset his 3000-meter record, while Martina Schultze broke Victoria von Eynatten’s record in the pole vault which was set last year.
• At the ACC Indoor Championships, Schultze reset her record in the pole vault, while Artis-Gray (long jump), McCants (200 meters) and Thomas Curtin (5,000 meters) stamped their names in the Tech record book.
• To book his ticket to the NCAA Indoor Championships, Mulherin reset his record in the 3,000 meters at the Alex Wilson Invitational on last chance weekend.
• At the NCAA Indoor Championships, Black once again topped his mark en route to a fourth-place finish, the highest result of his career at nationals.

Separating from the pack
• Jeff Artis-Gray is now in possession of five Virginia Tech records, which is currently the most of anyone. Before breaking a near 30-year old record in the long jump at the 2013 ACC Indoor Championship, he was previously tied at four with teammate Michael Hammond and former Hokies Gary Cobb, Keith Ricks and Ryan Witt.
• With outdoor eligibility still remaining this year, Artis-Gray will have the opportunity to add to his legacy in Blacksburg this spring..

Throwing at the top
• With a runner-up finish in 2011 and a pair of third-place finishes at nationals in the weight throw, Alexander Ziegler opened up his final season at the Hokie Invitational by setting the nation’s standard. His heave of 70-9.25 (21.57m) was more than a foot further than the next best mark in the NCAA. Still, the throw was nearly five feet short of his personal best of 75-7.25 (23.04m).
• A week later, he upped his season-best mark to 71-7.5 (21.83m)which ranked third in the NCAA.
• Two weeks later at the ACC Championships, Ziegler erased the both his personal best and the conference meet record with a heave of 77-8.75 (23.69m), the NCAA’s longest throw since February 26, 2010 when Walter Henning of LSU recorded a throw of 78-1, 23.80 at the Southeastern Conference Championships. The mark is nearly four feet beyond this season’s next best throw.
• His mark ranks eighth all-time in NCAA history.
• Ziegler was named Southeast Region Men’s Indoor Field Athlete of the Year this week. It is his second region award after being named Outdoor Field Athlete of the Year last spring.
• After the NCAA Indoor Championships, Ziegler was named ACC Men’s Indoor Field Performer of the Year.

Lucky number three
• In his last ACC championship, Alexander Ziegler won his third individual ACC Indoor Championship this weekend in the weight throw. Ziegler had previously won the event in 2010 and 2011.
• This was his last chance at earning an ACC crown as his eligibility is up after the indoor season.

Jumping to new heights
• Already in possession of Tech’s indoor and outdoor high jump records, Ronnie Black has no where to go but up, distancing himself from the others on the list. The senior did just that on Jan. 26, increasing his record two more inches to 7-4.25 (2.24m). That wasn’t the last time Black would surpass his record though. In his last indoor season at Tech, at the NCAA Indoor Championships, he jumped 7-5 (2.26m) on his first attempt en route to a fourth-place finish, the highest of his career.

Vaulting into the record books
• Two-time All-American Martina Schultze has won three straight pole vault competitions this year, topping out at a school-record mark of 14-4.5 (4.38m) on her first attempt at the VT Elite Meet.
• The sophomore moved to second in the NCAA at the ACC Indoor Championships as she shattered her school record with a vault of 14-7.25 (4.45m). Not only was the mark a school record, it was also a new meet record and a European Indoor Championships qualifying mark. .

Quick learning curve
• Despite never having competed in the weight throw prior to coming to Tech from Slovakia, Tomas Kruzliak heaved the 35-lb. weight just over 65 feet it his first competition. He has since eclipsed 69 feet to rank 12th nationally.

Record-breaking start to 2013
• Seniors Jeff Artis-Gray and Jonathan McCants opened up their seasons at VT Invitational by topping their already school record marks in the 60m hurdles and 300m.
• After finishing his prelim in the 60m hurdles in 7.87, Artis-Gray shaved a tenth of a second off of his time in the finals to come in at 7.77, 0.04 seconds faster than the school record he set at the VT Elite Meet in 2012.
• Jonathan McCants capped off night one of the VT Invitational by clocking a time of 33.58 in the 300m, nearly five tenths of second faster than his previous school record of 34.05 which he set at the Hokie Invitational in 2012.

German connection
• Currently, the Hokies have eight athletes from Germany competing in four different events. Matthias Treff and transfer Sabine Kopplin in the javelin, Annjulie Vester in the weight throw/hammer throw, Stephan Munz and Martina Schultze in the pole vault, and Benny Unger in the hurdles.
• The Hokes added two, Jens Merseburg and Sarah Kadelka to the roster during January. Both are javelin throwers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

Back in Blacksburg
• After winning the pole vault at the 2011 ACC Indoor Championships in his first-ever event for the Hokies, Stephan Munz was back in Germany last year to complete his undergraduate degree. The Goeppingen native is now back at Tech as a graduate student this year while he continues his Hokie career.

High-flying German
• In her first year at Tech, pole vaulter Martina Schultze made an immediate impact as she earned All-America honors during both seasons and went one-two at the indoor and outdoor ACC Championships with teammate Victoria von Eynatten. Schultze claimed gold at outdoors with von Eynatten coming out on top at indoors.

A small world
• Associate head coach and throws coach Greg Jack is looking to strike gold for a second time in Nitra, a city 4,700 miles away from Blacksburg, this time in hammer thrower Tomas Kruzliak. The Slovakian hails from the same city as former Hokie and two-time national champion Marcel Lomnicky.

Two for one
•Adding to his group of throwers halfway through the year, Associate Head Coach Greg Jack managed to sign a pair of javelin throwers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany. Jens Merseburg will have two years of eligibility while Sarah Kadelka will have three.

Summer success in Mexico
• Junior sprinter Darrell Wesh earned a gold medal last summer at the NACAC Under-23 Championships in Guanajuato, Mexico as he teamed with Charles Silmon, Marcus Rowland and Keenan Brock in the 4x100m relay. Wesh ran the lead leg for the group that ran a time of 38.94, besting teams from the Bahamas (39.65) and Jamaica (39.67).

Seeing double
• When you hear or see the name Degfae, know that it could be either Leoule or Tihut. Since Leoule joined his brother at Tech after transferring from Tennessee after one year, the two have competed together during only two seasons at Tech, once on the cross country team in 2011 and the other was the 2012 outdoor season.
• Leoule redshirted the entire 2011 season after joining the Hokies and Tihut redshirted the 2011 indoor season.

All-American siblings
• By finishing fourth in the 100 meters at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, Darrell Wesh joined his older sister Marlena as an All-American in the Wesh family.
• A senior at Clemson, Marlena is a five-time All-American and competed for Haiti in the 2012 Olympic Games.
• Darrell is a three-time All-American, earning honors at the 2012 NCAA Outdoor Championships and the 2013 NCAA Indoor Championships.

Sticking to the East
• With only two trips to the West Coast on their travel schedule this year, the makeup of this year’s Hokies show that the team tends to remain east of the Mississippi. The furthest athlete west of Blacksburg is from Huntsville, Ala., and 54 of the team’s 87 athletes are from the state of Virginia.