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GREENSBORO, N.C. – The Virginia Tech track & field team matched day two’s total of four qualifiers on the final day of competition at the NCAA East Preliminary Round at Irwin Belk Track. In all, the Hokies walked away from the three-day regional meet with 10 individual qualifiers for the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene, Ore.

In the early afternoon, Tech's hammer throwing duo of Tomas Kruzliak and Denis Mahmic did exactly what they needed to qualify for NCAA’s. With a mindset of wasting no time, both made sure that they had a trip secured within their first three throws. Kruzliak, the nation’s top thrower, hit a mark of 219-44 (66.86m) on his first attempt, which would have ultimately been enough to qualify, but he followed that up with a throw of 222-4 (67.77m), which eventually finished second.

“I was tired the whole competition,” Kruzliak said. “I didn’t feel right. My warm-ups were pretty good and with the first throw I just wanted to make sure that I would qualify. The second throw wasn’t good technically and the third was really bad. Then I passed the next three because it was about 45 minutes later so I didn’t think I would improve.”

For Mahmic, he was just shy of the 60-meter mark on his first two throws, but was able to pull off a qualifying mark of 205-8 (62.68m) on his third attempt which remained in the top 12 after the finals.

“It feels good to get back to NCAAs,” Mahmic said. “I was throwing much better in practice, but the pressure in the beginning, I wasn’t getting as far as I wanted, but on the third throw I was more comfortable.”

In the 1500 meters, Grant Pollock earned his first trip to nationals as he took third after clocking in at a new personal best of 3:40.77. On the final lap, the junior began to pull away with the lead pack. After rounding the final turn, he hit another gear and sprinted toward the line, passing three of the five runners ahead of him.

“I’ve never been here healthy before so it was felt great to show what I could do,” Pollock said. “The race went out pretty honest like my prelim and it just didn’t slow down. It was nothing that I hadn’t experienced before. I just kept rolling with it and a pack of six just split off from the rest and with 200 to go, I knew that I just had one to beat and I kind of sensed that guys ahead of me were straining a bit and I fed on that.”

Ronnie Black snagged the Hokies’ final spot to Eugene in the high jump as he easily cleared the bar on three straight attempts after passing on the opening height. After missing at 7-1½ (2.17m), misses at previous heights came into effect to determine qualifiers. That was no issue for the senior as several other competitors had been unable to clear 7-¼ (2.14m) on their first attempt.

“Qualifying for outdoor nationals is always an honor no matter what rank you are or what tier athlete you are, you always come into the preliminaries with nerves that you don’t get from any other meets,” Black said. “Coach Cianelli really puts this meet in perspective, in that you’re just competing against everybody else and that the height isn’t even a factor, it’s just about getting into the top 12. Nothing else matters.”

Tech had several close calls throughout the three days and unfortunately that run continued today. Sarah Kadelka, who came into the women’s javelin seeded 26^th, found herself just on the outside as she finished 13^th. The sophomore threw a collegiate-best mark of 153-6 (46.80m) on her first throw of the afternoon, which was good enough for 12^th after five rounds, but she was bumped out of qualifying as one competitor passed her in the final round.

During the evening, it was the men’s 4x100 relay that had one bad break after another in their race—one which left Jeff Artis-Gray unable to run in the 110-meter hurdles—the team still nearly qualified as it missed the third automatic spot the heat by one hundredth of a second after clocking in at 40.01.

Even with luck not always on the Hokies’ side, Tech will still head to the NCAA Championships in less than two weeks with 10 qualifiers (eight men, two women). The group will be led by its throwing squad with four qualifiers, while the pole vault and jump crews will each have a pair in the field. The Championships will be held on June 5-8 at Hayward Field on the campus of University of Oregon.

NCAA Qualifiers:

Jeff Artis-Gray (long jump)
Ronnie Black (high jump)
Tomas Kruzliak (hammer throw)
Denis Mahmic (hammer throw)
Grant Pollock (1500 meters)
Chris Uhle (pole vault)
Martina Schultze (pole vault)
Matthias Treff (javelin throw)
Annjulie Vester (hammer throw)
Darrell Wesh (100 meters)

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