Ben Varghese, women’s 4000m medley team earn gold in day two

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Jan. 11, 2020) – The ETSU Track and Field team officially completed their first event of the season on Saturday, finishing the home ETSU Track and Field Invitational inside of the MSHA/ETSU Athletics Center.

The Bucs had a strong second day, highlighted by Ben Varghese in the mile run and the women’s 4000m distance medley relay, Heather Feuchtenberger adding to yesterday’s 800m run gold with a team gold as well in the relay.

“Firstly, I want to thank our great officials group that includes quite a few of our alum. We have one of the best groups of dedicated people around and we absolutely could not host our meets without their help.”

Track Highlights from Day Two

• Varghese dominated from beginning to end of his mile race, putting up a time of 4:14.18 to win gold by more than 10 seconds.
• The women’s 4000m distance medley relay followed suit, finishing almost a minute ahead of second place for gold. Feuchtenberger, Julia Karsten, Genevieve Schwarz and Lindsey Stallworth combined for a time of 12:24.31.
• Kennedie Carithers bested her time and place from the prelims yesterday to earn third in the 400m dash, finishing in 58.16 seconds.
• Neyasha Honorable also bested yesterday’s results, finishing the 60m sprint in 7.83 seconds, good for fourth and only .04 seconds from second place.
• Kennedi Johnson, Kendra Whitehurst and Khiara White finished fourth, fifth, sixth respectively in the 60m hurdles, Johnson posting an 8.94 second time.
• In the 3000m run early in the morning, Gavin Cooper represented the Blue and Gold with a fifth placed, 8:57.68 finish. The sophomore was under a tenth of a second from top-four.

Field Highlights from Day Two

• The Bucs were highlighted in the field event by Mekayla Brown, who set a new personal record in the long jump. Brown leaped a distance of 5.89m (19’4”) for third, while White finished seventh (5.62m, 18’5.25”) before heading over to her race in the 60m hurdles.
• Jaden Finch followed her fifth place tally in the weight throw yeseterday with a fifth placed finish today in the shot put, tossing for 12.74m (41’9.75”).
• Placing fifth yesterday in the weight throw, Kolin Miller mustered a 12^th place finish in shot put, throwing for 13.35m.

Thoughts from Coach Watts

On today’s results: “I was very happy with the majority of the performances today.  We had several personal bests, podium finishes and in general showed some fitness by competing as strongly today as yesterday.”

On individual performers: "We always talk about "Podium" finishes in our meets and we had several of those beginning with the three wins. Ben opened up his season with a dominating performance in the mile run.  Other nice performances today included the three hurdlers, Neyasha in the 60, Kennedi Carithers in the 400 and Mekayla in the long jump.  Our throwers had a very good meet led by Margaret Hayden’s runner up finish yesterday in the weight throw.

On the women’s 4000m distance medley relay: “Yesterday Heather opened up with a nice win and followed it up with a lead off leg on the DMR.  It was great to have Lindsey back out and she did a great job of anchoring the team.  Sometimes it's tough to run out front, but I thought Julia and Genevieve did a nice job of keeping a nice gap on the other teams.”

On hosting the event: “It's a huge advantage to open your season at home and we are very fortunate to have the facility to do it on.  It gives us a chance to compete as many people as possible and with the youth of the team allows us to have a little less pressure to open the season.”

For a full list of results the ETSU Track and Field Invitational, use the link on the right side of this page.

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