By: Riley Phillips

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Jan. 19, 2017) –The ETSU men’s and women’s track and field programs will be on the road January 20-21 as it prepares for the Hokie Invitational inside the Rector Field House on the campus of Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Invitational will begin Friday with the Men’s Heptathlon at 11 a.m., and the first track event will begin at 5 p.m. with the women’s mile run. The meet will conclude on Saturday after the Men’s 4 x 400m relay at 4:05 p.m.

Last weekend at the ETSU Track and Field Invitational, three Bucs received first place honors with an additional 12 receiving top-five finishes. As a team, the men’s and women’s 4000m distance medley relay teams placed second. The women clocked at 12:58.10 while the men finished at 10:13.93.

Director of Track and Field/Cross Country, George Watts, hopes to continue the success of the first meet into Blacksburg, Va.

“Our focus this weekend is to fine tune and improve on this past weekend’s meet,” said Watts. “We will compete about half of our team this weekend due to some continued illnesses and mild injury concerns.”

Senior Michael Williams (Mt. Juliet, N.J.) seeks to improve in the 60 meter hurdles after placing second at the ETSU Track and Field Invitational. Last season, Williams won the SoCon Indoor Championship in the 60mH and 400m while earning Second Team All-American status during the outdoor season.

Sophomore Kyra Atkins (Greer, S.C.) and freshman Lamisha Simmons (Dania Beach, Fla) continue to work this week after a strong performance as they secured first and second place, respectively, in the women’s 60mH last weekend. Atkins and Simmons finished within 0.4 seconds of each other with Atkins crossing the line first.

“We have a group competing that missed out on our first meet, and I look forward to seeing how they perform,” said Watts. “After last week’s meet, we have eight conference leaders on our teams. I hope to see more of those kind of performances this weekend.”

Along with ETSU, 12 other schools are competing including Virginia Tech, Florida, Duke, Coastal Carolina, East Carolina, Charlotte, VCU, Marshall, North Carolina A&T, Hampton and Radford.

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