Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 11 No. 4 | March 2019

inside.hokiesports.com 29 MFPs I Document Management I Managed Print Services I Production Print Roanoke • New River Valley • Lynchburg • Charlottesville Richmond • Hampton Roads • Shenandoah Valley VAbusinesssystems.com • 540-362-3300 Our Fast Forward Document Solutions are a Slam Dunk! Providing Teamwork and Fast Forward Document Technology to Virginia Tech Athletics ... and your company! VBS Hokie Basketball ad 2018_Layout 1 12/13/18 8:12 AM Page 1 Blacksburg fromTCU for the spring semester, Rogers threw a personal- best 18.19 meters (59 feet, 8.25 inches) in the shot put to come in second just one day after throwing a personal-best 20.74 meters (68 feet, 0.5 inches) to come in second in the weight throw. “Coming here, I just wanted to get better,” Rogers said. “I just wanted to improve every meet. In shot [put], that’s been my PR [personal record] since my freshman year, and now throwing 18 [meters], that’s a big thing for me, and it shows that staying steady and improving can add up to big results. So I’m really excited.” Tech also got points from Matthew Manilli (fourth, heptathlon), Bashir Mosavel-Lo (fourth, 800), Miles Green (fourth, 400), Harrison Rice (fifth, pole vault), Tyson Jones (fifth, shot put) and Chauncey Chambers (fifth, triple jump)—most of whom are freshmen. The Hokies 4x400-meter relay team of Green, Mosavel-Lo, Eldon Phillips and Patterson ran the eighth-fastest time in school history, finishing fifth in a time of 3:13.91—and all of that quartet were freshmen. In fact, Volz was the only senior to score points for the men’s team in this meet. The remaining 107 points came from student- athletes with at least one year of eligibility remaining, or in several cases, two years. “I’m very excited about the future—outdoors and the next few years—because we’re so young, especially on the men’s side,” Cianelli said. “This is the youngest team we’ve had since I’ve been here—and that’s a long time. Typically, that type of youth isn’t able to achieve to this level and compete at this level and earn a championship so quickly. It usually takes some seasoning and learning how to compete at this level and how to train at this level. These young people, for the most part, have adapted well and are contributing right away—and that’s amazing.” On the women’s side, senior standout Rachel Pocratsky led the Hokies to a third-place finish, as they amassed 84 points—just one point behind second-place Florida State and seven behind winner Miami. Pocratsky won the 800 for the second straight year, tying a facility record with a time of 2:03.43. She also ran the anchor leg of the Hokies’ distance medley relay team that also included Sarah Edwards, Arlicia Bush and Shannon Quinn, and they won the event easily, besting the field by more than five seconds. Edwards and Rachel Baxter also won gold medals in their respective individual events, with Edwards taking home the gold in the mile with a time of 4:41.56 and Baxter setting a school record in the pole vault with a top vault of 4.47 meters (14 feet, 8 inches). The win marked Edwards’ second at an ACC meet, and she became the first Tech female runner ever to win the mile race, while Baxter won her first gold medal. Quinn (800), Eszter Bajnok (triple jump) and Sara Freix (5,000) all won bronze medals. Quinn sprinted down the final stretch and edged Clemson’s Kamryn McIntosh for her first individual ACC medal, while also running a personal best (2:08.72). Bajnok’s top mark in the triple jump was 12.95 meters (42 feet, 6 inches), and Freix also won her first individual ACC medal, taking third with a time of 16:11.48. Freix scored in the 3,000 as well, coming in seventh with a time of 9:27.43. Tech’s 4x400-meter relay team took home a silver medal. The group of Nykah Smith, Kennedy Dennis, Imagine Patterson and Bush recorded a time of 3:38.12 to come in second. Dennis and Bush added points from other events, as Dennis placed fifth in both the 60- and 200-meter dashes and Bush was fifth in the 400, setting a personal best with a time of 53.92. Cate Stone scored at the ACC Championships for the first time as well. Stone finished sixth in the 800, giving the Hokies three scorers in that one event. With the conclusion of the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships on March 9, the squads begin the outdoor season on March 22-23, with the student-athletes splitting up to compete in the Winthrop Invitational in Rock Hill, South Carolina; the Florida State Relays in Tallahassee, Florida; and the Vanderbilt Black and Gold Invitational in Nashville, Tennessee. Jacory Patterson broke his own school record in the 400-meter run en route to winning a gold medal at the ACC Indoor Track and Field Championships.