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GREENSBORO, N.C. – Day two of the NCAA East Preliminary Round had its share of scary moments for the Virginia Tech track & field team, but ultimately four Hokies came away with tickets to Eugene. Throwers Annjulie Vester and Matthias Treff made things a little too interesting during the early part of the day before earning their spots while Martina Schultze and Darrell Wesh had easier time in their events.

Vester’s day started off with a scare as she fouled her first two attempts in the hammer throw, but the sophomore came through on her third attempt with a throw 195-5 (59.56m) to qualify for the finals. On her next throw she sealed her first trip to the NCAA Championships after coming up just shy of her personal best at 203-0 (61.89m).

“I kind of pulled it together which usually isn’t the case for me; it’s usually two fouls and the third throw is horrible for me,” Vester said. “Coach (Jack) told me to just do it on my own in the finals and just get it together and I did.”

If the women’s hammer didn’t provide enough drama for the Hokies, Matthias Treff made things far more interesting than expected. The top javelin thrower in the field, and one of the best in the country during his career, Treff struggled throughout the afternoon. His first attempt landed at 223-8 (68.18m) which was good enough to earn him a spot in the finals, but his throws progressively dropped in distance along with a pair of fouls. Sitting in 11^th heading into the last round, Treff was passed twice and bumped out of qualifying, but on his last attempt, he reared back and moved into ninth with a throw of 229-0 (69.80m) to earn his third trip to nationals.

“There are really no excuses, I just had no feel for the javelin today,” Treff said. “The first couple of throws I never really got in the groove of the meet and then I was sitting kind of comfortable going into the last round, but two guys threw huge PRs and I was sitting 13. I wasn’t going to go out that way though so I just muscled one in.”

Finding himself in the toughest 100-meter heat of the night, Darrell Wesh just missed out on an automatic qualifying spot as he came in fourth, but his time of 10.29 was still good enough to add him to the continuing list of Hokie NCAA qualifiers. The junior also advanced in the 200 meters after placing third in his heat at 21.12. He’ll run tomorrow to compete for his second spot at nationals. Also, moving on in the 200 meters was Jonathan McCants who qualified with a time of 20.94 after fourth in his heat.

Along with Wesh, Jeff Artis-Gray will be looking to become an individual double NCAA qualifier as well tomorrow as he’ll be competing in the 100-meter hurdles after posting a school record time of 13.84. Although he had run faster earlier this year, he was thwarted by the wind which has plagued him several times when attempting to break the school record, but for today, it wasn’t a factor.

Martina Schultze grabbed the Hokies’ last birth to NCAA’s of the day in the women’s pole vault. Coming into the prelims as the second-best vaulter in the region, she breezed through on her only two attempts of the day at 13-1½ (4.00m) and 13-5¼ to earn her second straight birth to the outdoor championships.

"Today, I felt great, but I was pretty nervous because I knew that I just had to jump as always do, but this can be harder than expected," Schultze said. "It was a long and stressful meet but I'm glad that I did what I wanted to."

In the 800 meters, Amanda Smith and Tihut Degfae each took fourth in their heats, but their times were unable to hold up to qualify for nationals. Smith came in at 2:08.47 and missed the last spot but under a second, while Degfae just barely missed his trip after being edged out at the line for the third spot in by four-hundredths of a second after clocking in at 1:49.86.

Jared Berman also finished fourth in his 3000-meter steeplechase as the night came to close, but unfortunately his time of 8:56.18 was not enough to move on to nationals.

The Hokies will kick off the final day of the preliminary round tomorrow with the men’s hammer throw at 10 a.m. Both Tomas Kruzliak and Denis Mahmic are in flight in three.

For updates on Virginia Tech track & field, follow the Hokies on Twitter (@VT_Track).