HIGH POINT, N.C. – The VertKlasse Meeting finished competition on Saturday at Vert Stadium. Five Panthers posted personal bests to close out weekend action on High Point University's campus.
Head coach
Mike Esposito: "What an incredible event. I first want to thank all the support staff all the way around for helping us conduct this meet. It's quite a monster to work with, but I think we're worth it. It's a great opportunity for our kids to perform at a high-level meet that I also think is a fun meet. And quite a few teams commented on that, how different and how jovial the meet was. Obviously we had some regional qualifying performances for both genders. There's still work to be done, we have to get everybody healthy. We're starting to head down the home stretch here, and we've got to start refining some things, and most importantly become a little more consistent. But with that I think we're going to be fine."
Aidan Soto and
Riley Mazzetti led off day two action with the men's 800m participation heats. Soto finished seventh in 1:58.57 while Mazzetti was 21
st in 2:02.15.
Ethan Roach followed up with a quick race in the men's 100m participation section, finishing in 10.54 seconds. It would have marked his personal best if not for the illegal wind aid (+3.2). Roach also ended up winning the 200m participation section later in the day with a personal best time of 21.37 seconds. In a field with 86 finishers,
Aidan Britt was 11
th in the 200m as well in 21.95 seconds while
Will Ransone was 56
th in 23.58 seconds.
HPU also had two finishers in the men's 400m participation sections as
Isaiah Muse ran a personal best in 50.55 seconds for 11
th place while
Will Ransone was 39
th in 54.23 seconds.
Five Panthers competed in the men's 110m high hurdles,
Terris Burton II led the way with a seventh-place finish in 15.25 seconds.
Felix LeBlanc was 16
th in 15.73 seconds,
Kolt Byers was 24
th in 16.15 seconds,
David Caivano was 26
th in 16.22,
Evan Mills was 28
th in 16.39 seconds, and
Eric Garguilo was 39
th in 17.54 seconds. Beginning the finals sections of each event, Burton started by posting a season best in the men's 400m hurdles. His time of 51.68 was good for second place and also a current top-10 time in the NCAA East Qualifying Region.
Trent Strachan also finished seventh in the event with a season-best 54.99 seconds.
Britt also posted a top-10 finish in the men's 400m, crossing the finish line in 49.49 seconds. Britt also teamed up with Burton, Strachan, and Muse to run for the Panthers' 4x400m relay season-best time of 3:16.82, earning the squad a second-place finish in the event as well.
In field event action,
Nick Lourenco was third in the men's pole vault with a new personal record at 5.07m, 10 centimeters better than his previous best.
Jackson Tuomey was seventh with a mark of 4.87m and
Reid Holloway was 11
th, clearing 4.57m.
Larry Coaxum finished eighth in the triple jump with a personal best at 14.70m while
Kolt Byers was ninth in the men's high jump as well with a mark of 1.83m.
In the discus,
Alex Hoffman was 21
st at 43.14m while LeBlanc was 24
th at 42.03m.
Up Next: High Point plans to send athletes next weekend to both the Duke Invitational and Combined Events as well as the Aggie Invitational in Greensboro.
#DefendTheTeam x #GoHPU
