Hokie ClubBOSTON – The Virginia Tech men’s distance medley relay team finished third and Tech thrower Tomas Kruzliak came in fifth in the weight throw to put the defending ACC indoor champion Tech men’s team in a tie for second place after the first day of the 2016 ACC Indoor Track and Field Championships held Thursday at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center.
The DMR team of Daniel Jaskowak, Jared Bane, Vincent Ciattei and Neil Gourley ran the event in a time of 9 minutes, 38.69 seconds, which was a little more than two second behind winner Virginia. The Hokies sat in sixth place after the first three legs of the event, but Gourley passed two runners on the final lap to lift Tech to third place.
The DMR team earned the Hokies six points of their 10 points on the day, as Tech shares second place with Pittsburgh. Virginia leads the team race with 13 points.
Kruzliak, a senior from Nitra, Slovakia, accounted for the other four points after finishing in fifth in the weight throw. He was second after the first flight with a throw of 67 feet, 11.75 inches. One of nine to make it to the finals, he improved to 69 feet, 6.75 inches, but that wasn’t quite enough to hold off his competitors. Pittsburgh’s Andrew Wells won the event with a throw of 71 feet, 11 inches and was the only competitor with a throw better than 70 feet.
The Tech women’s team had a light day, as only the DMR team of Katie Kennedy, Kacia Vines, Shannon Quinn and Tessa Riley, and pentathlon competitor Emily Miller saw action. They did not score any points for the Hokies on the day.
The DMR team finished in ninth place with a time of 11:32.51 – only the top eight finishers score points toward the team total. Miller finished 18th in the women’s pentathlon. She came in 11th in both the high jump and the 60-meter hurdles – her best finishes of the five events. The sophomore ran the 60-meter hurdles in a time of 9.22 seconds, while finishing the high jump with a best mark of 5 feet, 3.75 inches.
The only other competitor for Tech on the day was Mackenzie Muldoon, a sophomore from Christiansburg, Virginia, who stood in 18th place after the first four events of the men’s heptathlon (60-meter dash, long jump, shot put and high jump). His best finish came in the 60-meter dash, where he finished eighth in a time of 7.33 seconds. The remaining three events of the heptathlon will be held Friday.
The second day of the Championships begins at noon on Friday with the men’s high jump. The women begin competition at 2 p.m., with the preliminaries in the mile run. ESPN3 will begin its coverage of the Championships at 5 p.m.