Team VA had quite the opening day at the New York City Armory. We saw Virginia athletes and relays tally up nine victories, set a national record, have multiple All-American finishes, and set some All-Time VA bests.
Day 1 Photo Hub
With just two championship events on Friday Virginia athletes made the most of it with a national record victory by Loudoun Valley in the DMR and with an All-American 4th place finish in the high jump by Taylor Beard. Her mark of 5-11 ranks VA #2 all-time. Read more about those two performances in their featured recaps.
Loudoun Valley DMR National Record Recap - Taylor Beard 5-11 High Jump Recap
Virginia also has an All-American in Kaitlynn Wolfe (Blacksburg) who finished 4th in the 5K with her 17:40.
In the emerging elite events Virginia also performed very well. Here we saw eight victories with seven individuals winning and one relay team winning.
The field event winners were Jahnelle Saunders (Bethel) who cleared 5-8.50 for the win in an exciting jump off, Jordan Hardy (Hampton) with her 39-3 in the triple jump, and Megan Mann (Lee-Davis) who put the shot 44-4 to win. That mark ties her for 14th all-time in Virginia.
On the sprint stretch Virginia also had two wins. Na'Taja Ballard (Western Branch) took home the 60mH title in 8.49 with Tallwood's Tamia Arnold a close second in 8.56. This was the only event with a VA 1-2 finish on Friday.
Javonte Harding of Prince George also took home a win with his 6.77 big win in the 60m dash. He will also be competing in the Championship 200 tomorrow.
Also sprinting well was Michaela Rose with her second place 55.41 in the 400. She was followed later in the evening by another 757 sprint star in Makhia Jarrett of Salem who took home the 200m title in 24.21.
Our only distance champion was Mary Caroline Heinen (Maggie Walker) who threw down a nasty final 200 to take home the two mile in 10:42.13.
Finally in the 4x800s we had Saint Catherine's finish 3rd despite an interference and fall and Ocean Lakes finish 5th from the unseeded section. In the guys' race Ocean Lakes took home the win with a lean at the line to beat section one's time by under a second. Ocean Lakes' time was 8:00.00.