The Wake Forest track and field team competed in the JDL Fast Track Championship Tune-up Feb. 16th at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem.
Photo courtesy of bu.edu
While some athletes stayed to compete for a second day at the Virginia Tech Challenge others returned home to compete in 4 different events locally at JDL. The team had an overall solid performance feeding off of their wins the day before at the Virginia Tech Challenge in Blacksburg, Virginia.
In the women’s one mile run, freshman Ashley Brubaker placed 1st with a time of 5:04.33 topping her personal best by more than 5 seconds (5:11.00).
“I had a rough start to the indoor season, I was injured and not training at the same capacity,” said Brubaker. “I was definitely happy to see the improvement, but it’s still just an improvement.”
Coming in second place with her college debut in the event was freshman Samantha Jones (5:07.71), and sophomore Aubrey Waggoner took 3rd with a time of 5:08.64, also a personal best for her.
“Our goal was to run together. It worked out well,” said Brubaker. “It was nice to have [Jones] beside me for the whole time. She’s my best friend and roommate.”
For the women’s 800m run, freshman Kendall Knous finished first for the Deacs in 3rd place (2:19.78). Sophomore Natalie Sukramani was next in 7th place with a new personal best of 2:20.92, and coming behind her in 9th, 10th, and 11th were Caitlin Hartnett (2:22.37), Caitlin Krol (2:24.77), and Brianna Dekine (2:25.60).
In the men’s 3,000m run, four of the five competing Deacons placed in the top five. Senior Jake Graham finished first in 2nd place with a time of 8:37. 59, surpassing his previous personal best by more than 17 seconds. Next was Conner Crowley coming in at 3rd place (8:44.05), Nate Guthals in 4th (8:44.14), Brian O’Toole in 5th (8:44.15), and at 12th place was Evan Little (9:13.94).
Freshman Ryan Horgan led the Deacs in the men’s one mile run earning 2nd place (4:21.49) in his debut of the event.
The Deacons now look forward to competing in the ACC championships starting Feb. 22.