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VT Invitational
January 18-19, 2013
Rector Field House
Blacksburg, Va.
Live Results: http://www.flashresults.com/2013_Meets/indoor/01-18-VTInvite/

Previewing the meet
• After the pole vaulters and heptathletes opened up the 2012-13 indoor season at the end of November, the rest of the Hokies will get their season underway this weekend as 15 teams from four states will send athletes to Blacksburg for the VT Invitational.
• Teams with entries in the field are Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, Concord, Davidson, Duke, East Carolina, High Point, Liberty, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central, Radford, Richmond, Tennessee and Virginia Tech.
• Friday’s action will start off at 5 p.m., with women’s triple jump, unseeded pole vault, and the men’s weight throw. Saturday will begin at 11 a.m., with the men’s high jump and women’s seeded pole vault.

Last time out
• Hokie heptathletes and pole vaulters opened up the indoor season on Nov. 30 at the Liberty Kickoff at the Tolsma Indoor Track Center in Lynchburg, Va. Scott Campbell won the heptathlon with 4,959 points. Leigh Allin won the women’s pole vault with a mark of 12-1 (3.70m) while Lyndsey Saunders and Grace Giampietro tied for third at 11-3.75 (3.45m). On the men’s side, Chris Uhle and Brad Johnson each cleared marks of 15-9 (4.80m), the second best of the competition.

Returning All-Americans
• Back this season are 2012 two-time All-Americans Martina Schultze (pole vault), Alexander Ziegler (weight throw/hammer throw) and Ronnie Black (high jump).
• After becoming a two-time national champion last spring in the hammer throw, Ziegler will finish up his eligibility during the indoor season as he seeks to earn his first national title in the weight throw after two second place finishes and a third at NCAAs during the previous three seasons.
• Frances Dowd returns this winter after earning All-America honors in the 800m during the 2011 indoor season.
• Joining Black, Ziegler and Schultze during the indoor season after earning All-America honors last spring are Jeff Artis-Gray, Michael Hammond, Jonathan McCants and Darrell Wesh.
• After redshirting the indoor season in 2012, Hammond returns to the track this winter to complete his eligibility as a Hokie looking to pick up where he left off in 2011 after earning All-America honors in the mile.
• The last returning All-American is Matthias Treff who will finish up his Hokie career during the outdoor season in the javelin.

Bowerman watch
• After finishing last season as a semifinalist for the prestigious Bowerman Award, Tech thrower Alexander Ziegler was named to the Preseason Watch List prior to the 2013 season.
• The senior from Dischingen, Germany has been piling up accolades since setting foot on campus in 2010, earning All-America honors and medaling in all six seasons while becoming the second athlete in Tech history to win back-to-back NCAA titles in the hammer throw, and the fourth Tech athlete to earn multiple national championships.

Last hurrah
• Jason Cusack, Eric Hoepker, Michael Hammond, Will Mulherin and Alexander Ziegler’s clocks are ticking on the collegiate careers. The quintet have just under two months remaining their eligibility up after the indoor season.

Separating from the pack
• Seniors Jeff Artis-Gray and Michael Hammond have the opportunity to separate themselves from all others in the Tech record book as both are currently tied with former Hokies Gary Cobb, Keith Ricks and Ryan Witt for holding the most records in the men’s program.
• Hammond has only the indoor season to separate himself from the pack, while Artis-Gray has both indoors and outdoors.

Elite level
• Redshirt junior Frances Dowd won the NCAA Elite 89 Award last season, an honor presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA Championships. She finished 15th in the 800m (2:09.38) at the 2012 NCAA Indoor Championships.

German connection
• Currently, the Hokies have seven athletes from Germany competing in four different events. Matthias Treff and transfer Sabine Kopplin in the javelina, Alexander Ziegler and Annjulie Vester in the weight throw/hammer throw, Stephan Munz and Martina Schultze in the pole vault, and Benny Unger in the hurdles.

Back in Blacksburg
• After winning the pole vault at the 2011 ACC Indoor Championships in his first-ever event for the Hokies, Stephan Munz was back in Germany last year to complete his undergraduate degree. The Goeppingen native is now back at Tech as a graduate student this year while he continues his Hokie career.

High-flying German
• In her first year at Tech, pole vaulter Martina Schultze made an immediate impact as she earned All-America honors during both seasons and went one-two at the indoor and outdoor ACC Championships with teammate Victoria von Eynatten. Schultze claimed gold at outdoors with Von Eynatten coming out on top at indoors.

A small world
• Associate head coach and throws coach Greg Jack is looking to strike gold for a second time in Nitra, a city 4,700 miles away from Blacksburg, this time in hammer thrower Tomas Kruzliak. The Slovakian hails from the same city as former Hokie and two-time national champion Marcel Lomnicky.

Running into the record books
• Before the indoor season even kicks off, senior Will Mulherin has already supplanted himself as one of the top distance runners in Tech history. During the fall, he became the first two-time All-American cross country runner in Tech history while leading his team to the program’s first ACC Championship as he won the individual crown.
• Last year, he became the first runner in ACC history to win three champions in the 5,000 meters at the ACC Outdoor Championships.

Summer success in Mexico
• Junior sprinter Darrell Wesh earned a gold medal last summer at the NACAC Under-23 Championships in Guanajuato, Mexico as he teamed with Charles Silmon, Marcus Rowland and Keenan Brock in the 4x100m relay. Wesh ran the lead leg for the group that ran a time of 38.94, besting teams from the Bahamas (39.65) and Jamaica (39.67).

Seeing double
• When you hear or see the name Degfae, know that it could be either Leoule or Tihut. Since Leoule joined his brother at Tech after transferring from Tennessee after one year, the two have competed together during only two seasons at Tech, once on the cross country team in 2011 and the other was the 2012 outdoor season.
• Leoule redshirted the entire 2011 season after joining the Hokies and Tihut redshirted the 2011 indoor season.

Two-sport Bahamian
• For the second year, Demitri Knowles will join the track team for the indoor season. The speedy sophomore from the Bahamas was a spark for the for the Hokie football team during the fall after redshirting a season ago.
• Knowles was raised in Freeport, Grand Bahama and grew up competing in track and swimming. After realizing he wanted to pursue a football career, he moved to Lynchburg, Va., where he was an all-state performer in football and track for two years at Liberty Christian Academy.

Sticking to the East
• With only two trips to the West Coast on their travel schedule this year, the makeup of this year’s Hokies show that the team tends to remain east of the Mississippi. The furthest athlete west of Blacksburg is from Huntsville, Ala., and 59 of the team’s 93 athletes are from the state of Virginia.

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