The William & Mary track & field teams competed on Saturday at the Mount Olive First Chance meet, and came away with four lifetime-best performances and four event victories. Two athletes also moved squarely onto the NCAA selection bubble with their performances.
- W&M went 1-2 in the men's javelin, with redshirt-freshman
Jared O'Riley (Woodstock, Ontario, Canada) once again taking the win with a throw of 66.20m (217-2), the second-best of the season for Riley behind only his conference-winning mark from two weeks ago. Freshman
Chris Arias (Red Bank, N.J.) was second overall, throwing for a lifetime-best 63.84m (209-5). That ranks Arias eighth in school history in the javelin, and moves him up to 50th in the NCAA East Region this season (the top-48 go to the Eastern Preliminary Round at the end of the month).
- Another 1-2 finish came in the men's hammer, where redshirt-junior
KJ Cook (Buena Vista, Va.) threw a lifetime-best 65.74m (215-8) for the win, and the best mark of the season for W&M. That was the fifth-longest throw in school history, and ranks Cook third all-time in the hammer throw. Right behind him was classmate
Jason Wright (Huntington Station, Va.), who threw a lifetime-best of his own at 59.84m (196-4) to rank fifth in school history. On the NCAA qualifying list, Cook moved up to 21st in the East Region, and Wright improved to 51st in the region.
- In the men's 5,000m, redshirt-junior
Spencer Tsai (Eugene, Ore.) won by nearly 30 seconds, and timed a lifetime-best 14:38.99 to set W&M's best time of the season.
- Another win came in the women's 1,500m, where freshman
Kyra Holland (Warrenton, Va.) took the gold in 4:31.87, just three short seconds shy of the Tribe's freshman record in the event.
- In the discus, Cook set a season-best of 51.19m (167-11) and placed third overall, just ahead of classmate
Connor Scott (Mechanicsville, Va.) who was fourth with a throw of 50.92m (167-1).
- Cook also took third in the shot put, with a put of 16.34m (53-7.5).
- Rounding out the day was the 800m, where freshman
Josh Lewin (West Chester, Va.) was second overall by half a step in 1:52.96. Redshirt-sophomore
Alex Loukili (Reston, Va.) was sixth in 1:55.98.
William & Mary will be back in action tomorrow. The throwers will compete against Mount Olive's Last Chance meet, while the runners will join several other teammates at the Aggie Twilight Classic in Greensboro, N.C.