April 17, 2014
RALEIGH, N.C. — After a day comprised mainly of preliminary events, the University of Notre Dame track and field teams look ahead to the work they have left to do this weekend. Following day one of the three-day ACC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, the Irish men are sitting in fourth place with 15 points while the women rank 10th with six points.
Notre Dame’s points from the day were earned in field events. Dominick Padovano earned third in the men’s hammer with a throw of 56.7m. On the women’s side, Vivien Devaney also placed third with a throw of 57.25m.
Logan Rewick (7.39m) and Keith Mesidor (7.30m) placed fourth and fifth respectively in the men’s long jump, earning nine more points for the Irish.
Many Irish athletes’ performances in the prelims today served to advance them to final competition later in the weekend. A special example of this came in the women’s 1,500m run, where the top two finishers in every heat qualified. Sisters Danielle and Alexa Aragon competed side-by-side in their heat, and ultimately crossed the finish line together, both qualifying for the finals. Danielle finished first with a time of 4:21.83 and Alexa was barely a tenth of a second behind her with a time of 4:21.95.
“I was pretty excited for the chance to run with Dani,” said Alexa Aragon. “Usually during the outdoor season she’s in the 800 and I’m in the steeplechase, so we don’t cross paths. It was fun. It was like back in the high school days when we used to race together. I was scared because it was a prelim, so we both had to get the one-two to get out of there, and obviously we wanted that for each other.”
In other preliminary events, Margaret Bamgbose qualified for the finals of the women’s 200m dash with her time of 23.68. Megan Yanik (59.47), Michelle Rotondo (58.83) and Kaila Barber (1:00.06) all qualified for the finals in the women’s 400m hurdles.
Three Notre Dame athletes also qualified for the finals in the men’s 200m dash. Patrick Feeney came in sixth in the prelim with a time of 21.00, Chris Giesting was right behind him in seventh at 21.10, and Josh Atkinson also qualified with an eighth-place time of 21.37.
Jarrod Buchanon (52.33) and Aaron Dunn (52.76) both made it through to the finals of the men’s 400m hurdles with third and seventh place finishes. Finally, Nick Happe finished first in the men’s 1,500m preliminary with a time of 3:45.88.
Events begin again tomorrow morning at 10:30 with the women’s javelin throw. Live results can be found here on the ACC website.
–Lauren Chval, Media Relations Assistant
–ND–