NEW ORLEANS – Following numerous top performances at the Virginia Tech “Doc Hale” Elite Meet, the previously No. 4 ranked men’s track & field team moved up to the No. 3 team in the nation, as announced by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) on Monday.
“I was extremely pleased with our performance last weekend at the Virginia Tech Elite Meet,” Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Dave Cianelli said. “We had four or five national performances last weekend. I’m looking forward this week as our athletes prepare for the ACC Championships at the end of the month.”
Virginia Tech is one of four ACC schools represented in the USTFCCCA’s top-25 with Virginia at No. 18, NC State at No. 19, and Syracuse at No. 21. The Hokies received 96.80 points behind Florida in first with 129.26 and Texas A&M in second with 117.23. LSU and Texas round out the top-five in the rankings.
Tech’s distance runners lead the men with two of three total first place finishes over the weekend. The Hokies placed first in the mile by Neil Gourley, 3,000-meter run by Thomas Curtin, and unseeded pole vault by James Steck on Friday night. Torben Laidig continued Tech’s success with another record-setting pole vault performance on Saturday.
With Gourley’s top finish in the mile, he became the second runner in program history to run under a four-minute mile with a time of 3:59.58. Daniel Jaskowak placed second, now ranking ninth all-time, with a personal best 4:04.89-mile time.
The 3,000-meter runners followed suit with five top-10 finishes. All-American Curtain set the “Doc Hale” Elite Meet record with his first-place, 7:55.73 finish, nearly missing a personal best time. Stuart Robertson came in second, followed by Darren Barlow in fourth with times of 8:22.73 and 8:29.02, respectively. Daniel Rau and Andrew Eason placed seventh and 10th to round out the field of 20.
The men’s unseeded pole vaulters concluded competition on Friday night with a 1-2 finish by Steck and Jeffrey Linta, respectively. Both set new personal bests with Steck’s 5.20 meters (17-0.75) and Linta’s 5.00 meters (16-4.75).
On Saturday morning, Laidig’s 5.62-meter (18-5.25) height set both a new Tech program record and Atlantic Coast Conference record with his second place finish in the pole vault. Deakin Volz and Brad Johnson rounded out the top-10 with sixth and 10th place finishes, respectively.
The Hokies look to build on their successes Friday and Saturday at the Iowa State Classic and Samford Invitational.
The USTFCCCA Rankings’ methodology does not correlate directly with the NCAA Championships scoring system. Points are designated using the USTFCCCA individual rankings, which take into account both the top previous-season marks from top returners and the best performances of 2016.
The USTFCCCA's full release can be found here.