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Hokie Invitational
January 25-26, 2013
Rector Field House
Blacksburg, Va.
Live Results: http://www.flashresults.com/2013_Meets/indoor/01-25-Hokie/

Previewing the meet
• Eleven schools will be represented this weekend at the Hokie Invitational, the second of six meets at Rector Field House this season. Friday’s competition is set to start 5 p.m., with Saturday’s to begin at 11 a.m.
• Charlotte, NC State, Norfolk State, North Carolina, South Carolina UNC-Greensboro, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest will be fielding entrants in both the men’s and women’s fields. James Madison and UCF will have teams in the women’s field while Concord will have one entrant in the women’s field.
• The Virginia Tech and NC State men’s teams are currently ranked No. 15 and No. 19, respectively, while the UCF and South Carolina women are ranked No. 10 and No. 20.
• Tech heptathlete Scott Campbell will be competing this weekend at the Penn State National in University Park, Pa.

Last time out
• The Hokies captured five titles last weekend at the VT Invitational.
• Wins on day one came from Michael Hammond (100m), Jonathan McCants (300m), Will Mulherin (mile) and Leah Nugent (60m hurdles). Competing unattached, Grace Giampietro won the unseeded pole vault while Ciara Simms posted the top time of the night in the 60m prelims.
• McCants and Jeff Artis-Gray (60m hurdles) each re-broke their school records which they set a season ago.
• In their wins, Giampietro and Hammond each set new personal best, while Nugent tied her career best.
• Tech’s lone win on day two came from Martina Schultze who’s winning mark of 4.26m in the pole vault is currently the third best mark recorded this season.

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.

ACC Sportsmanship Awareness week
• This week is the Atlantic Coast Conference Sportsmanship Awareness week, a campaign to emphasize and promote sportsmanship as it relates to the teams, the conference and the fans. As part of this initiative, we encourage all athletes to please shake hands with your competitors and wish them well either before or after your competition. Thank you for your cooperation and participation in the ACC’s Sportsmanship Awareness campaign.

Record-breaking start
• Seniors Jeff Artis-Gray and Jonathan McCants opened up their seasons at VT Invitational by topping their already school record marks in the 60m hurdles and 300m.
• After finishing his prelim in the 60m hurdles in 7.87, Artis-Gray shaved a tenth of a second off of his time in the finals to come in at 7.77, 0.04 seconds faster than the school record he set at the VT Elite Meet in 2012. His time is currently the sixth fastest time recorded in the event this season.
• Jonathan McCants capped off night one of the VT Invitational by clocking a time of 33.58 in the 300m, nearly five tenths of second faster than his previous school record of 34.05 which he set at the Hokie Invitational in 2012.

Vaulting up the national rankings
• Two-time All-American Martina Schultze claimed her first pole vault title of the season at the VT Invitational with a mark of 13-11.75 (4.26m). The sophomore’s vault currently ranks as the third best in the country.

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.

German connection
• Currently, the Hokies have seven athletes from Germany competing in four different events. Matthias Treff and transfer Sabine Kopplin in the javelin, 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.
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.

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).