CLEMSON, S.C. – The Georgia Tech men’s and women’s track and field teams wrapped up the Orange & Purple Invitational on Friday evening. Lottie Chappell registered the second-best one-mile time in Tech history.
Chappell entered the one-mile event with a personal best time of 4:47.97 set back in February of last year. She grew into her race as her splits began to gradually decrease, she crossed the line in second place at 4:44.46.
The junior smashed her best and etched her name into the record book with the second-fastest women’s mile time in school history, fastest since 2022. Stella Chambless and Gracie Marston finished behind in 14th and 16th, respectively, Chambless achieving her personal best in the event.
The women created momentum in the distance track events, beginning with Claire Shelton. The sophomore made her collegiate track debut the previous week and finished sixth in the mile and was set to continue her run of form. Shelton was in a race of her own, crossing the line first and finishing a whopping 15 seconds clear of the next runner.
Shelton’s feat was clocked at 9:34.96 and led the Jackets to a 1-3 finish in the event. Sadie Honig claimed a podium-place finish in her collegiate event debut at 9:52.00. Both underclassmen were competing in only their second collegiate track meet.
The men also recorded several high-placements in the mile event with Billy Carlton claiming a third-place finish at 4:04.90. Taylor Wade set a personal best at 4:05.30 to finish fourth with Matt Castronuovo and Joey Sandel rounding out the top-15.
Kendall Ward flew over the 1.61m mark in her first effort of the high jump event and placed third in the event. Tahir Hines reached 18.81m on his second attempt of the weight throw to finish fourth. Freshman Wyatt Windham claimed a ninth-place finish in the men’s 3000m race as Winston DeCuir III rounded out the top-10 at 47.50 in the men’s 400m dash as he logged his best time of the season.
Kennedy Myers advanced out of the preliminary round of the women’s 60m hurdles before bowing out in the semis in 12th place with her best time of the day at 8.49.
Georgia Tech completes the first leg of back-to-back meets at Clemson. The Jackets are set to return next weekend from January 30-31 for the Bob Pollock Meet.
Full Steam Ahead
Full Steam Ahead is a $500 million fundraising initiative to achieve Georgia Tech athletics’ goal of competing for championships at the highest level in the next era of intercollegiate athletics. The initiative will fund transformative projects for Tech athletics, including renovations of Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field (the historic home of Georgia Tech football), the Zelnak Basketball Center (the practice and training facility for Tech basketball) and O’Keefe Gymnasium (the venerable home of Yellow Jackets volleyball), as well as additional projects and initiatives to further advance Georgia Tech athletics through program wide-operational support. All members of the Georgia Tech community are invited to visit atfund.org/FullSteamAhead for full details and renderings of the renovation projects, as well as to learn about opportunities to contribute online.
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