Hokie ClubNEW ORLEANS – Heading into the fourth week of its season, the Virginia Tech men’s track and field team is ranked No. 16 in the latest United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Indoor Computer Rankings, as announced by the organization Monday afternoon.
Tech is ranked the highest from the ACC for the third straight poll, joining No. 19 Florida State, No. 24 Virginia and No. 25 Syracuse.
The top-three teams in the poll remained the same with Florida coming in at No. 1, Georgia at No. 2 and Texas A&M at No. 3 – all three are in the SEC. The SEC boasts the most teams in the Top 25 with seven, while the ACC owns the third-most among the conferences with four squads.
Tech moved down four spots for the second consecutive week. The women moved back four spots as well, coming at No. 41 – the third-highest ranking in the ACC.
The Hokies have had a successful 2018 campaign thus far, racking up 15 first-place finishes through the first three weekends of play. Headlining the group is freshman Lisa Gunnarsson in the pole vault event, who is the lone student-athlete to take an event title each weekend. On the men’s side, fellow vaulter Deakin Volz has turned in two first-place finishes, winning at the Nittany Lion Challenge and Bob Pollack Invitational.
This past weekend at the Liberty Kickoff, Rachel Pocratsky ran the sixth-fastest time in NCAA history in the 1,000 meters, Lauren Berman won her first-ever event in the mile and Neil Gourley tallied the title in the 1,000.
The men currently own three times and marks that rank in the top-50 nationally in the traditional events, including Keishaun Limehouse’s time of 7.91 in the 60-meter hurdles at No. 28 and Volz and Joel Leon Benitez’s marks of 5.49 meters (18 feet, 0 inches) at No. 7 and 5.37 meters (17 ft., 7.25 in.) at No. 11.
The Hokies will be back at it this weekend, splitting up and going to three meets. The pole vault and jumps/multi-events groups will head north to Akron, the distance group will go to Wake Forest and the sprints/hurdles group will make the trek to Kentucky.