April 9, 2011
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – After two days of competition at the Seminole Invitational at the Mike Long Track, the Georgia Tech men’s and women’s track and field teams netted six individual titles, three of them coming from the duo of Julienne McKee and Joanna Wright.
Joanna Wright improved upon her school record height of 4.22 meters set last weekend at the Tiger Track Classic in Auburn with a 4.31 meter mark, which gave her the victory and currently ranks third in the country. Wright sits just behind Katerina Stefanidi of Stanford who holds the country’s best mark with 4.42 meters and Rachel Laurent of LSU.
McKee also excelled on the weekend bringing home victories in both of the field events that she competed in, the long jump and the triple jump. Both of her marks were career bests for the freshman as she leaped over six meters for the first time in her career with a 6.05 meter mark in the long jump, 22nd in the country. Her triple jump distance of 12.62 meters is also a career best and ranks 19th in the country.
Following behind McKee in the long jump was Jasmine Kent who took second with a season best jump of 5.94 meters.
Also earning a win for the Jackets on the weekend was DJ McMillan who paced the way in the 5,000 meter run, knocking 16 seconds off of his season best mark and finishing with a time of 14:37.16. Four other Jackets earned top-10 finishes as Patrick Barron took third (14:50.55), Niall Longobardi crossed fifth (15:10.62), Doug Black earned a seventh place showing crossing in 15:25.39 and Obiandu Igwe rounded out the pack (8th place, 15:27.60).
Joe Fulton earned the third win on Friday night, taking home the 3,000 meter steeplechase title with a 9:23.64 finish. Alec Clifford and Nathan Tew finished right behind him in second (9:46.29) and third (9:53.74) place respectively.
The Jackets started Saturday off with a handful of second place finishes, Duncan Thompson – hammer throw (50.57m), Melanie Akwule – 100 meter hurdles (13.66 seconds) and the two 4×100 meter relay teams crossed as the runner up (women’s – 46.57, men’s – 41.11).
Jasmine Isley got the Jackets back to their winning ways as she took first in the 400 meter hurdles with a season best time of 1:00.40, with McKee and Wright netting their victories shortly thereafter.
The Jackets will take a week off as they prepare for the ACC Outdoor Championships which will take place from Thursday, April 21 to Saturday, April 23 in Durham, N.C.
