Canes Complete Second Day of ACC Championships
April 20, 2012
Weather Update Alters Start Time
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The Miami men’s and women’s track and field teams wrapped up their second day of competition at the University of Virginia’s Lannigan Stadium on Friday. Day two saw the preliminaries of the track events along with more field events and the conclusion of the heptathlon and decathlon.
Starting off the scoring for the Canes on day two was senior Rachel Dupree, who placed seventh in the heptathlon with a personal-best total of 4,474 points. Soon after, fellow senior Ashley Holmes scored in her second event of the competition, placing sixth the shot put with a throw of 14.67 meters. The last contributor to the team score for the day was sophomore Nicole Cummings, who placed eighth in the long jump with a mark of 5.87 meters.
In the field on the men’s side, senior Jason Johnson made the final of the long jump, but finished one place out of scoring with a season-best jump of 7.10 meters.
Meanwhile on the track, Miami had a handful of qualifiers for Saturday’s finals. Leading the way was the senior duo of Devon Hill and Tarika Williams. Hill, looking to repeat as ACC-Champion, won his heat of the 110-meter hurdles in 13.66 seconds, which was the second-fastest time on the day. Williams qualified in the 100 and 200 meters, running season-best times of 11.49 and 23.84, respectively.
After her eighth-place finish in the long jump, Cummings moved on to the track to qualify for the 100-meter hurdles final after running a personal-best time of 13.75. Also moving on to Saturday’s finals were sophomore Thandi Stewart and freshman Christian Cook in the 400-meter hurdles with new season-best times of 58.07 and 53.55, respectively.
“My race for the 110 hurdles didn’t go as well as I would have liked, but I had a lot of positives come out of my race,” said freshman Cook. “Seeing that I missed the finals by one sport hurts. IMy 400-meter hurdle race went well and I’m excited to advance to the finals. Will have to run a clean race tomorrow as I want to finish among the top five.”
Junior Greg Kaczka broke the school record in the 1500 meters with a personal-best time of 3:51.98, topping the old record of 3:52.50 set earlier this season by sophomore Connor Adams. Other notable performances included seniors Brian Laskowski, Austin Rector and Matthew Wilson in the 800 meters. Laskowski ran a season-best 1:52.76, while Rector and Wilson set new personal-bests, running 1:53.16 and 1:55.85, respectively. Senior Evan Hadrick also ran a season-best in the 400 meters, finishing in 50.48 seconds.
Virginia Tech currently leads the men’s team competition with 82 points, while Duke leads on the women’s side with 55 points.
Tomorrow’s event start times will all be moved two hours earlier due to the likely possibility of inclement weather. The field action will begin with the men’s high jump, women’s high jump and women’s discus throw at 10 a.m., while the track events start with the men’s 4×100-meter relay at 11:30 a.m. Free, live video streaming coverage from 11:30 a.m., through the final event will be available on theACC.com.
