Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 3 | January 2020

44 Inside Hokie Sports ever since. This past spring, she was the ACC Women’s Field Performer of the Meet after a strong performance at the ACC Outdoor Championships in which she claimed a silver medal in the triple jump with a school-record leap of 13.66 meters (44 feet, 9.75 inches) and fourth place in the long jump. Bajnok came up short of earning All-America honors last season—she earned honorable-mention recognition during the outdoor season—but the 2018 All-American (outdoor) and the three- time ACC gold medalist goes into her final season with all of the Hokies’ long and triple jump records and should be ready to make a name for herself on the national landscape. KENNEDY DENNIS Class: Junior Hometown: Greenville, South Carolina Specialties: 60, 100, 200 Outlook: Dennis was on the perfect trajectory toward her first ACC medal when she injured herself during the outdoor season and missed the ACC Outdoor Championships. During the indoor season, she finished fifth in both the 60 and 200 at the ACC’s meet—the best finishes of her career—and she also led the 4x400-meter relay team that came in second at the league’s indoor meet. Dennis already holds the school record in the 300 (indoor) with a time of 37.88 seconds, and her personal-best time of 7.29 seconds in the 60 stands as the second-fastest in school history. Her time of 11.56 seconds in the 100 is the third-best ever at Tech, and her time of 23.71 seconds in the 200 (indoor) ranks fourth. She could hold all of these records by the end of this season. The ACC features some of the best sprinters in the country, and Dennis certainly possesses the potential to be in that group. SARAH EDWARDS Class: Senior Hometown: Bellingham, Massachusetts Specialties: Mile, 1,500 Outlook: Tech’s dominance in the middle distance events also applies to the women’s side, as former runners Pocratsky, Hanna Green, Amanda Smith and Shannon Morton all earned All-America honors within the past five years. Edwards, a four-time All-American in four different events (1,500, mile, distance medley relay and 3,000 steeplechase), stands right there among those greats. Last season, she earned first-team All-America honors in the mile at the NCAA Indoor Championships after coming in sixth, and she earned second- team honors at the NCAA outdoor meet with a 16th-place finish in the 1,500. She also won a gold medal in the mile at the ACC Indoor Championships and a silver in the 1,500 behind Pocratsky at the ACC Outdoor Championships. The two-time ACC gold medalist should be a big point scorer for the Hokies and continue the program’s middle- distance excellence. SARA FREIX Class: Senior Hometown: Centreville, Virginia Specialties: 5,000, 10,000 Outlook: Freix has improved each and every year since she arrived at Tech, and now she is coming off an incredible cross country season in which she finished second at the ACC Championships and earned an at-large berth to the NCAA Championships. A year ago on the track, she earned second-team All-America honors as a member of the distance medley relay team that came in 10th at the NCAA Indoor Championships. She also won a bronze medal in the 10,000 at the ACC Outdoor Championships with a career-best time of 34:02.82, and she won a bronze medal in the 5,000 at the ACC Indoor Championships. Freix holds the school record in the 5,000 (indoor), and she ranks fourth on the school’s all-time list in the 10,000 (outdoor). Her rise to the top of the ACC distance field should continue this season. Proud to be the Preferred Senior Living Provider of VT Athletics (800) 796-5420 WeLoveOurResidents.com EnglishMeadows_VT Ad_8Jan2020.indd 1 1/8/20 9:04 PM ON YOUR MARKS Continued from page 43