Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG, Va. – After day one of the 2015 ACC Indoor Track & Field Championships, the Virginia Tech men’s track & field teams sits in second-place overall while the women’s team sits in ninth place.
A third-place finish in the men’s distance medley relay and a fourth-place finish from Tomas Kruzliak in the weight throw propelled the men to second place after day one. The women earned their only points of the night from the women’s distance medley relay team, who finished in fifth place, to secure ninth place after the first day of competition.
“I thought the efforts today were great. The men’s distance medley relay was just one of those races where it came down to the top-three teams with 30 meters left. It could have finished in any order. It was a great race,” explained Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Dave Cianelli.
“The women’s distance medley relay exceeded expectations getting fifth in their race so I was very happy with them. Tomas is just coming back from sickness and I thought that was a terrific effort in the weight throw for him for not being at 100 percent.”
In the men’s distance medley relay. Vincent Ciattei started things off in the 1200-meter leg, giving the Hokies good positioning with a 3:00.11 split. Ciattei passed the baton to Martin Dally who ran Tech’s 400-meter leg. Dally finished in 49 seconds flat before handing off the baton to Kevin DeWillie for the 800-meter leg. DeWillie’s split of 1:50.82 kept Tech in the hunt. Thomas Curtin ran the anchor 1600-meter leg for Tech. With a 4:03.32 1600-meter split, Curtin was able to propel the Hokies to a third-place finish with a time of 9:43.23 overall and six total points.
Tomas Kruzliak earned a fourth-place finish in the men’s weight throw, earning the Hokies five points. Kruzliak’s fourth throw of 67’3.25” (20.44m) would have been enough to secure fourth, but he bested that on his final throw. After fouling his fourth and fifth throw, Kruzliak hit 68’10” (20.98m) on his sixth and final attempt. Kruzliak earned the Hokies five points moving their total to 11 on the day.
The women’s distance medley relay finished in fifth place overall. The team of Katie Kennedy, Nora McKiver, Shalonda Mitchell and Katarina Smiljanec posted a time of 11:22.81. Mitchell, who ran the fastest 800-meter leg in the field, put Tech in good position to finish strong.
The Hokies will continue the meet tomorrow with preliminaries for several races as well as finals for the men’s and women’s high jump, the men’s and women’s long jump, the men’s and women’s 5000-meter race and the women’s pole vault.
“The men’s long jump is going to be a really big event for us tomorrow,” continued Cianelli. “Manuel Ziegler and David Prince will both be jumping for us and that will be a key event.”
“For the preliminaries, we are certainly hoping to get at least one person through to the finals and into scoring position in each of the events. Then we have the 5000-meter finals, the final race of the day. Picking up a few points there could really help us out in the long run,” concluded Cianelli.
Events start tomorrow with the conclusion of the men’s heptathlon starting at 11 a.m. and will conclude with the men’s 5000, featuring the Hokies’ Curtin, at 7:40 p.m.