Virginia track and field brought the excitement and electricity from Charlottesville to Lynchburg and Clemson, competing in a series of events highlighted by the team’s sprinters and jumpers on Friday and Saturday. The team as a whole was spread throughout the country, but the short-distance bunches at Liberty and Clemson held it down strongly for the Cavalier collective.
In Lynchburg, the marquee highlight of the meet was brought by the women’s 4x400-meter relay Saturday afternoon. Bringing their flair to the field, the quartet was able to shatter the previous meet record — held by Virginia Tech since 2022 — with a season's best time of 3:41.71. Junior sprinters Ariel Fletcher, Brooke’Lyn Drakeford and Elsa Spoor alongside senior sprinter Sarah Akpan are heating up at the right time before the ACC championships.
Fletcher and Drakeford seemingly built momentum going into Saturday based on their performances Friday. In the women’s 400-meter invite, Fletcher zoomed to a season’s best time of 54.85, bumping her up to a program No. 8 all time in the event. Her duo partner Drakeford also enjoyed hitting a 54.99 new personal best time as they both raced to a fourth and sixth place finish respectively.
Sticking with the long sprint, the Virginia men also had success in the event as freshman sprinter Anders Felt also hit a personal best of 48.53, placing second overall in the event. The long sprint crew is beginning to find form late into the season, something crucial for success especially in a physically demanding event like the 400-meter dash.
As for short sprints, sophomore Kaela Swift delivered in her opening prelim and semi-final round on Friday, racing to times of 7.62 and a personal best of 7.53 respectively. In the finale Saturday, she placed fifth overall running a 7.64.
Transitioning from the track to the pit, sophomore sprinter and jumper Grace Smith followed her own 60-meter dash performance with an impressive fourth-place mark in the women's long jump. Her best jump came in her third round with a mark of 6.01m/19-8.75.
There was continued success in the pit Friday and Saturday as sophomore Caleb Holman followed Smith's long jump formula, jumping to a fourth-place 7.34m/24-01 mark in his third round of jumps Friday. Hours later the next day, Holman took charge in the men's triple jump, winning out the field with a mark of 15.59m/51-1.75.
Holman set the tone for his teammates as freshman jumper Liam Paneque and sophomore jumper Isaiah Hewton leaped to fifth- and sixth-place finishes. 14.81m/48-7.25 was the mark for Paneque as he notched a new personal best. Hewton jumped to a 14.44m/47-4.50.
Friday’s field events also included a trio of Cavaliers placing fourth, fifth and sixth place in the women’s pole vault. Senior pole vaulter Samantha Romano hit a season-best clearance of 4.05m 13-3.50, putting her in the top 75 of Division I pole vaulters. Freshman pole vaulters Hannah Byrd-Leitner and Madison Townsend had identical clearances of 3.90m/12-9.50.
Saturday also grabbed a few more top five placements in the short- and long-distance events. In the women’s mile invite, freshman long distance runner Katie Payne inked her name into program history with a runner-up placement time of 4:46.43. Her personal best ranks No. 5 all time in Virginia freshman history. Another Katie, senior long-distance runner, Katie Dorsey, was right behind her namesake with her own personal best of 4.51.01, placing fourth overall.
Saturday’s short sprints for women were opened up by the 200-meter dash which saw junior sprinter Ma'Khi Falkquay race to a 24.81 fifth-place finish. The trend of high placements in sprint events has been a tremendous representation of the booming of the Virginia Track and Field sprints program.
While the majority of the team stayed in Virginia, a small group of sprinters and hurdlers traveled down to compete at the Tiger Paw Invitational in Clemson, S.C.
Freshman Ava Rice brought home one of the most competitive performances in the women’s 60-meter hurdles. Rice advanced through prelims in 8.43 seconds before clocking 8.50 in the finals.
Sophomore Maya Rollins also competed and crossed the line in 8.54 in the 60-meter hurdles prelims. She finished 28th overall, coming four places short of advancing to the finals by just hundredths of seconds.
The men mirrored the women’s competitiveness in the short-distance events. Senior Peter Djan displayed grit and crossed the line in 7.95 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles preliminaries. He finished 26th out of some of the nation’s top hurdlers.
Although he did not advance to the finals, the sub-8:00 performance shows great signs heading into the last few weeks of NCAA Division I indoor season. Djan also went on to compete in the men's 60-meter dash, where he finished in 6.85 and placed 32nd.
It's the dawn of a new age as the program once heavily relied on long distance to come through with top performances. Now the array has been diversified across the board as seen with the impressive placements over the weekend.
Before the ACC Indoor Championships, the Cavaliers will compete in the Arkansas Qualifier and Virginia Tech Challenge on Feb. 20 and 21 to fine tune themselves and build off this weekend's success.
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