JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Jan. 31, 2020) – The ETSU Track and Field completed day one of the Buccaneer Track and Field Invitational on Friday, highlighting the home meet with a sweep in the 4000m distance medley relay while receiving some strong individual performances.

The opening day was highlighted through some collective team efforts in relays, as both the men and women’s 4000m DMR teams took home gold for the first wins for ETSU in the meet. Kennedi Johnson continued her strong start to the season, posting the fastest time in both the prelims and semis of the 60m hurdles on her way to tomorrow’s finals.

Track Highlights from Day One

• Opening the event with the 60m hurdles, the Bucs grabbed a great start. Finishing with the top time in the semis, Kennedi Johnson finished with a time of 8.87s to secure a place in the finals tomorrow. Kendra Whitehurst joined Johnson with a fifth-placed mark of 9.11s.
• Johnaida Eliscar followed suit with a qualification of her own, posting a 59.34 second 400m time to move on to the finals on Saturday.
• The final of the women’s 60m sprint finals tomorrow will be packed with Blue and Gold, as four of the eight qualifiers are from ETSU. Nicole Johnson and Kennedie Carithers were separated by .04s to come in fourth and fifth, while Lanaya Martin and Mekayla Brown finished seven-eight with times of 7.69s and 7.70s. Johnson recorded a 7.53s time, only three hundredths of a second from a second place finish in the semis.
• The women dominated from start to finish in the 4000m distance medley relay behind the legs of Heather Feuchtenberger, Julia Karsten, Lindsey Stallworth and Genevieve Schwarz. The quad finished nearly 40 seconds faster than their second-placed competitors in Montevallo, finishing with a time of 12:07.53.
• ETSU would end up sweeping the 4000m DMR, the men also taking home top marks in the event. Miguel Parrilla, coming off a gold in the 800m run last week at the VMI Team Challenge, joined teammates Josh Routh, Myles Stoots and Ben O’Connor to a narrow victory, their time of 10:28.78 defeating Montevallo by less than two seconds.
• Carithers and Nicole Johnson both set qualifying times in the 200m dash, Carithers finishing with the third best time at 24.91s while Johnson finished with a sixth place, 25.59s finish.

Field Highlights from Day One

• The women nabbed a fourth-sixth place finish in the long jump behind Brown and Whitehurst. Brown, coming off of her SoCon Track Athlete of the Week accolades, finished with a leap of 5.74m. Whitehurst finished her day with a sixth place jump of 5.64m after her time at the 60m hurdles.
• Kolin Miller finished with a throw of 15.65m in the weight throw to place seventh in a strong field.
• Natalie Newsome competed tough in the pole vault, finishing as one of five women who reached the 3.25m mark to earn sixth place. The three to finish above Newsome finished at the next height, 3.40m.
• Patra Williams finished seventh in the high jump, finishing with a 1.5m mark.
• The highlight of the field events surely became the women’s weight throw, an event that had ETSU plastered throughout the top four. Symphony Buxton, Jataya Wilson and Margaret Hayden landed second-third-fourth in the event, scoring throws of 16.73m, 16.49m and 16.36m respectively.

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

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