Jan. 14, 2012
LEXINGTON, Ky. – After two days of competition, the Georgia Tech men’s and women’s track and field teams wrapped up their time at the Kentucky Invitational held at the Nutter Field House on the campus of the University of Kentucky.
Shawn Roberts brought home the lone victory for the Jackets during the meet crossing the line first in the 3,000 meter run with a time of 8:20.53.
In fact, the Yellow Jackets saw a lot of success in the 3,000 meter run bringing home five top-10 finishes as Alec Clifford finished in third place in 8:25.57, Patrick Barron took home fifth place in 8:27.51, Eric Powers crossed in sixth place in 8:28.40 and Jeremy Greenwald rounded out the top-10 finishers in ninth with a time of 8:31.08.
The women’s team excelled in the sprint and hurdle events on the day as senior Leslie Njoku led the way in both events finishing third in both the prelims and finals in the 60 meter hurdles (8.61) while also taking eighth in the 200 meter dash with a time of 25.25.
Two other Jackets made their way to the finals of the 60 meter hurdles with Njoku. Melanie Akwule who finished 11th in the prelims, shaved over a tenth of a second off of her time for the finals to finish seventh overall while Jasmine Isley who took 15th in the prelims knocked over two-tenths of a second off of her time for a 10th place finals finish.
In the 200-meter dash, Stephanie Kalu was the top finisher for the Jackets with her seventh place, 25.03 second performance. She was followed by Njoku, Jamillah Middlebrooks (10th place, 25.40) and Julienne McKee (11th place, 25.53).
Kalu also saw a lot of success in the 60-meter dash taking second in the preliminary rounds and finishing third overall in the finals with a time of 7.58 seconds. After placing 15th in the prelims, Middlebrooks lowered her time to take home 10th in the finals with a 7.82 second run.
On the men’s side, Perron Jones continued his success and finished second during the finals of the 60 meter dash with a school record time of 6.77 seconds. Michael Simms Also earned a spot in the finals taking home 13th with a time of 7.10 seconds.
Jones brought his success into the 200 meter dash where he placed fourth with a time of 21.84 seconds. Simms took home eighth with a 22.59 finish while Paul DeVito earned a 13th place, 23.32 second finish.
The women’s sprinters of Middlebrooks, Pate, Alex Braxton and Njoku combined for an eighth place 4×400 meter relay finish crossing in 3:56.68.
In the field events, Aaron Unterberger and Nikita Kirillov took home fifth and sixth in the pole vault with a height of 4.87 meters (15-11.75). Erica Penk earned a seventh place, 3.72 meter (12-2.5) finish on the women’s side while newcomer Samantha Becker took home 11th (3.57 meters, 11.8-5).
McKee, who also saw success in the sprint events brought home a second place finish in the long jump with a leap of 5.90 meters (19-4.25) and a third place finish in the triple jump with a 12.21 meter launch (40-0.75).
The Jackets will return to action at the Nutter Field House in two weeks when they travel back up to Lexington for the Rod McCravy Invitational on January 27 and 28.
