The William & Mary men's track and field team put in a very long, very productive day Saturday, collecting 16 IC4A qualifiers and yet another school record in meets at Duke and Virginia.  In the former, the Tribe finished sixth out of 30 teams with 56 points, while East Carolina took top honors with 78 points.

Among the top performers on Saturday was redshirt-senior Taylor Frenia (Virginia Beach, Va.), who continued to punish groundskeepers with new marks in untouched grass.  He started the day in the shot put, where he finished second overall with a put of 17.83m (58-6), the second-longest effort in school history behind only his record performance from a week ago.  Almost immediately, he had to turn around and get warmed up for the discus competition.  Easily in the top five for most of the competition, Frenia unleashed a massive throw of 55.52m (182-2) in his sixth and final round to leap up to the top of the leaderboard and shatter not only his own school record, but also the meet and stadium records as well.  That was his sixth school record of the year, and the fourth week in a row that Frenia has broken the program best.

Sticking in the throws for the moment, junior Preston Richardson (Franktown, Va.) also had a pair of IC4A qualifiers on the day, finishing sixth in both the shot and the discus.  In the first, he put the shot 16.41m (53-10.25), before coming back in the discus with four throws over 50m (after never reaching that mark previously in his career), including a best of 50.47m (165-7).  That was the 12th-longest throw ever for W&M, and ranks him fourth all-time among Tribe throwers.  Sophomore Vlad Castillo, Jr. (Belle Mead, N.J.) also broke through in the discus, placing 16th with a lifetime-best of 45.09m (147-11).  That improves Castillo to 16th all-time at W&M.  In the javelin, redshirt-junior Tucker Rizzi (Westport, Conn.) established himself as the CAA favorite with a big personal-best throw of 65.05m (213-5) to finish second overall, tops among all collegiate throwers.  That improved him to sixth all-time among Tribe athletes.

In the pole vault, senior Lucas Wratschko (Fairfax, Va.) set a lifetime-best of his own, clearing the bar at 4.96m (16-3.25).  That placed him eighth overall in the competition, while improving Wratschko to fourth on the all-time athletes list.  It was also the 13th-highest vault ever at W&M outdoors.  Continuing the theme of lifetime-bests, junior Dylan Anderson (Madison, N.J.) ran a conference-leading 52.77 seconds in the 400m hurdles to place fifth overall, and improve to sixth all-time at W&M in his first sub-53 second performance.  Senior Troy Sevachko (Centreville, Va.) re-qualified for the IC4A Championships in the 200m dash at 22.19 seconds, and redshirt-freshman Evan Woods (Bethesda, Md.) rounded out the notables at Duke with his IC4A-qualifying 3:55.16 in the 1,500m run.

Meanwhile, up at Charlottesville, the distance corps was putting in serious mileage.  In the 5,000m run, senior David Barney (Lynchburg, Va.) ran a lifetime-best 14:12.23, improving to 16th all-time among Tribe athletes, while Riley Covert (Charlottesville, Va.) and JP Trojan (Chardon, Ohio) also ran IC4A qualifiers, in 14:42.82 and 14:43.47, respectively.  Freshman Cooper Leslie (Camp Hill, Pa.) and sophomore Ryan McGorty (Fairfax, Va.) qualified in the 1,500m, with Leslie running 3:52.11 and McGorty 3:53.16.  The final pair of qualifiers on the day came in the 10,000m, led by senior Trevor Sleight (Asheville, N.C.) who placed eighth overall in 30:06.81.  That was a lifetime-best of more than 33 seconds for Sleight, and the top time in the CAA this season.  Classmate AJ Tucker (Durham, N.C.) was 13th in 30:17.55, improving his previous best by more than two minutes.

William & Mary has a light weekend next week, in preparation for both final exams and the Colonial Athletic Association Championships May 5-6.  The Tribe will send a small contingent up to Philadelphia, for the Penn Relays Thursday-Saturday, April 27-29.

Duke Invitational
Team Standings
1. East Carolina 78
2. Indiana Tech 76
3. Charlotte 64
4. Duke 61
5. North Carolina A&T 60
6. William & Mary 56
7. LIU Brooklyn 45
8. Appalachian State 41
9. Campbell 39
10. George Mason 36
11. North Carolina Central 32
12. Mt. Olive 31
T13. Virginia Tech 18
T13. North Carolina 18
15. Hampton 15
16. UNCW 13.5
17. Gardner-Webb 13
18. Davidson 12
19. Wingate 11
20. Concord 10
21. Elon 8
22. High Point 7
23. The Citadel 6
24. Liberty 4.5
T25. Mars Hill 4
T25. UNC Asheville 4
T27. West Virginia Wesleyan 3
T27. Queens (N.C.) 3
29. N.C. State 2
30. VMI 1