April 23, 2011
DURHAM, N.C. – After setting the school record in the pentathlon at the 2011 ACC Indoor Championship, senior Kayla McKeirnan went for the sweep and set the school record in the heptathlon at the 2011 Outdoor ACC Championship on Day Two of competition at Wallace Wade Stadium on the campus of Duke University.
McKeirnan never placed lower than seventh in any of the events and finished as the runner up in both the high jump and 800 meter run. Throughout competition she set season best marks in all but two events to break the school record mark set by Lauren Reimer in 2004 with a score of 5,133 points to finish in fourth place overall garnering some point for the Lady Jackets.
Also doing well in her first ACC heptathlon was freshman Monique Pate who notched 4,484 points during the two day event. Like McKeirnan, she had season best marks in all but two events and beat her best javelin mark by over seven meters to take fifth in the event.
While McKeirnan and Pate are done with competition in the heptathlon, three Yellow Jackets will continue competition on the last day of the ACC Championships on Saturday when they compete in the finals of their respective events.
Shawn Roberts, who had the team’s best 1500 meter time heading into the championships crossed the line in second place to automatically qualify for the finals on Saturday with a time of 3:55.32. Also automatically qualifying was Mark Mendrek-Laske who crossed in ninth place with a time of 4:00.21.
Senior Leslie Njoku was the final Tech runner to qualify for finals when she took sixth place in the 400 meter hurdles, going under the 1:00 mark with a time of 59.59. Jasmine Isley just missed the cut off for finals with her ninth place, 1:01.26 finish.
Also just nearly missing the mark was Subbu Sivanesan who crossed the line 10th in the 400 meter dash with a season best time of 49.34.
In field competition on the day, freshman Julienne McKee tallied some points for the Jackets with her sixth place, 5.96 meter jump in the long jump.
The Jackets will be back in action on the final day of the ACC Championship on Saturday, April 23.
