The William & Mary men's track & field team won four events Saturday at the JMU Invitational, a strong showing in the regular season finale. The Tribe also had nine new entries in the program record books.
Freshman
Chris Arias (Red Bank, N.J.) started the day off for W&M with a win, taking the javelin title with a throw of 62.94m (206-6), just four centimeters off of his lifetime-best. Also in the throws, redshirt-junior
KJ Cook (Buena Vista, Va.), competing in his second meet in as many days, won the hammer with a lifetime-best throw of 63.99m (209-11). That was the 10th-longest throw in school history, and ranks Cook third all-time among athletes. Redshirt-junior
Jason Wright (Huntington Station, N.Y.) also set a lifetime-best in the hammer, throwing 58.54m (192-1) for second overall. That improved Wright to seventh all-time among Tribe athletes. In the discus, Cook was third overall with a throw of 50.17m (164-7), while
Connor Scott (Mechanicsville, Va.) was fifth at 48.99m (160-9). The pair reversed their order in the shot put, with Scott finishing second with a put of 16.56m (54-4) and Cook taking third at 16.03m (52-7.25). Also in the field events, freshman
Ethan Buenviaje (Chesapeake, Va.) was sixth in the long jump, hitting the sand at 6.41m (21-0.5).
The top performances continued on the track throughout the afternoon and evening. Grad student
Theo Chambers (McLean, Va.) won the 400m for the second-straight week, and the fourth time in six races in 2021. He ran a lifetime-best 48.06 for the win, the third-fastest time in school history and to rank as the third-fastest athlete ever at W&M.
Jack Bunting (Summit, N.J.) was fifth with a lifetime-best 49.49 showing, while
Colin Grip (Acton, Mass.) and
Chris Rosales (Harlingen, Texas) were eighth and ninth, respectively, in 50.08 and 50.20 seconds. Later in the day, Rosales, Chambers, Grip, and freshman
Josh Lewin (West Chester, Pa.) combined to win the 4x400m relay in 3:19.36.
In the short sprints, freshman
Jackson Cooley (Reston, Va.) had himself quite the day. Cooley finished fifth in the 100m dash in a lifetime-best 10.83. That was the 14th-fastest race ever at W&M, and ranks Cooley seventh all-time among athletes. He came back later in the day to finish third in the 200m dash, this time running 21.88 seconds to rank 12th all-time at W&M. Redshirt-freshman
Daniel Layton (Waynesburg, Pa.) ran 56.11 seconds for third place in his first-ever 400m hurdles race, good for 16th all-time among Tribe athletes.
The longer events included the 3,000m steeplechase, where
Zach Skolnekovich (Sewickley, Pa.) took fourth overall in 10:05.91 to cut more than 20 seconds off his best in the space of a week. In the 5,000m,
Sam Pritchard (Springfield, Va.) was third overall in 14:52.69, followed closely by
Tyler Lipps (Virginia Beach, Va.) who ran 14:54.12 for fourth place. Both men set lifetime-bests as well. The 1,500m saw
Joshua Shackelford (Hayes, Va.) take third place in 3:59.91, just ahead of
Jack Mackey (Alexandria, Va.) who ran a lifetime-best 4:00.29 for fourth overall. Redshirt-junior
Matt Frame (Alexandria, Va.) was seventh in the event, running 4:05.53. Freshman
Alex Sawyer (Virginia Beach, Va.) was sixth overall in the 800m, crossing the finish in 1:55.63. Redshirt-junior
Johnny Rogers (Vienna, Va.) was eighth in 1:56.42, and
Alex Loukili (Reston, Va.) ran 1:56.86 for 10th.
With the regular season now complete, William & Mary turns its attention to the Colonial Athletic Association Championships, which will be hosted by James Madison April 30-May 1.
