COMPLETE RESULTS
PHOTOS DAYS 1-2
PHOTOS DAY 3

The High Point University men's track & field team placed sixth at the Big South Championship on Saturday in Lexington, Va. Junior Neal Darmody won the 10,000-meter and placed second in the 5,000-meter and Jacob Smith took second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and third in the 5,000-meter to lead the Panthers.

“Neal Darmody and Jacob Smith stood out for us, both getting on the podium twice, and we had a lot of good performances this weekend,” said HPU head coach Mike Esposito. “Both of our hurdlers ran career bests on Saturday, Evan Emery got on the podium in the dash and Corey Grove competed well in the 800 in the last meet of his college career. I think some of our freshmen grew up during this meet by going through all the rounds.”

Liberty won the championship with 187.5 points, well ahead of runner-up Coastal Carolina's 111.5 and third-place Charleston Southern's 109. VMI placed fourth with 101 points followed by Radford (83), High Point (78), Gardner-Webb (76), Winthrop (54) and UNC Asheville (18). HPU held a four-point lead over Radford going into the last event but the Highlanders made a dramatic comeback to win the 4x400 relay and overtake HPU.

In the men's 5,000-meter, Darmody led for the first half of the race with Liberty's Evans Kigen and HPU's Smith close behind. Kigen made a move and pulled away for the victory in 14:35.32. Darmody fell to third before rallying to finish second in 14:47.96 ahead of Smith in third at 14:52.61. HPU's Dakota Peachee and Jacob Roach placed 11th and 12th, respectively. On Thursday, Darmody won the 10,000-meter in 30:48.36 with Roach third in 31:25.67. On Friday, Smith ran 8:54.24 to place second in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and Peachee placed third.

The Panthers had three excellent performances on the straightaway on Saturday. Freshman Evan Emery placed third in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.64 seconds. In the 110-meter hurdles, junior Alex Fisher placed fifth and freshman Ryan Venable placed seventh, both running career bests. Fisher finished in 14.67 and Venable came in at 15.18.

Senior Corey Grove finished out his collegiate career with his best 800-meter. Grove made a move into second place on the last lap but couldn't hold on, placing fourth in a career-best 1:54.20. Freshman Patrick Crawford placed sixth in the 1,500-meter in a time of 4:02.15 on Saturday, coming back from Friday's events in which he ran the 1,500-meter trials and placed fifth in the steeplechase.

Junior Jacob Mathews placed fourth in the pole vault on Saturday. He cleared 4.15 meters (13-7.25) on his first attempt to score five points. Freshman Steven Scally placed 15th in the discus. High Point's 4x100 relay placed seventh and the 4x400 relay placed eighth.