Hokie ClubBLACKSBURG – Virginia Tech track and field athlete Diego Zarate won the gold medal in the 1,500-meter race at the USA Junior Outdoor Championships held this past weekend (June 23-26) at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Clovis, California.
With his win, Zarate qualified for the IAAF World U20 Championships, which will be held July 19-24 in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Also, the Hokies’ Deakin Volz qualified for the World Championships by virtue of his second-place finish in the pole vault. The top two finishers in each event qualify for the World Championships.
Zarate, who just finished his freshman season at Tech, became just the second Tech runner (Patrick Joseph, 2014) to win a gold at the USA Junior Outdoor Championships. He won with a time of 3 minutes, 47.53 seconds, beating Kentucky’s Kendall Muhammad, who claimed silver with a time of 3:48.39.
Zarate, from Germantown, Maryland, was eighth in the 1,500 at the ACC Outdoor Championships, but at the USA Junior Outdoor Championships, he won his preliminary heat in a time of 3:52.40 to qualify automatically for the finals before winning the gold medal. The top three finishers in each of the two heats and the next six best times qualified for the finals.
Volz, who also just finished his freshman season at Tech, claimed silver in the pole vault with a top vault of 5.45 meters, or 17 feet, 10.5 inches. He came five centimeters short of gold medalist Christopher Nilsen, a recent high school graduate who competed unattached, but will be at the University of South Dakota next fall.
Volz’s vault marked a personal best for the Bloomington, Indiana product, who won a bronze medal in the event at the ACC Outdoor Track and Field Championships held in Tallahassee, Florida in mid-May and also the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships held in Birmingham, Alabama in late March. His previous best was 5.35 meters, which came at the Texas relays earlier this spring.
Two other Tech track and field athletes competed at the USA Junior Outdoor Championships – Peter Seufer and Rachel Pocratsky. Like Volz and Zarate, Seufer and Pocratsky just completed their freshman seasons at Tech as well.
Seufer, from Lynchburg, Virginia, finished fifth in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 15:31.22 seconds.
Pocratsky, competing in the 800, came in fifth with a time of 2:06.54, which was less than four seconds behind winner Samantha Watson from Rochester, New York. Pocratsky, from Olney, Maryland, was second in her preliminary heat with a time of 2:07.90, which qualified her for the finals. The winner of each of the four preliminary heats and the next four best times advanced to the finals.
Also, the Hokies’ Neil Gourley competed in the 1,500 at The British Championships held at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, England this past weekend (June 23-26). The Glasgow, Scotland product finished 11th with a time of 3:57.68. He came in second in his heat during the preliminary round with a time of 3:46.15 to advance to the finals. The first three in each of the four heats and the next three fastest times advanced to the finals.