The William and Mary track and field programs have five athletes and alumni set to compete at national championships this weekend, with four at the USAT&F Junior and Senior Championships in Des Moines, Iowa, and one more alum at the Canadian Championships in Moncton, New Brunswick. These meets, in addition to crowning national champions, also serve as selection meets for a number of international championships later this summer.
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| Date |
Time (Eastern) |
Event |
Athlete |
| U.S. Championships |
| Thursday, 6/20 |
1:30 p.m. |
Junior Shot Put |
Taylor Frenia '16 |
| Thursday, 6/20 |
8:55 p.m. |
Junior 5,000m |
Emily Stites '16 |
| Thursday, 6/20 |
10:00 p.m. |
Senior 10,000m |
Christo Landry '08 |
| Saturday, 6/22 |
1:00 p.m. |
Junior Javelin |
Bob Smutsky '16 |
| Canadian Championships |
| Saturday, 6/22 |
7:15 p.m. |
Senior Javelin |
Brandon Heroux '12 |
The current Tribe roster has three rising sophomores competing, all at the USAT&F Junior Championships at Drake.
Emily Stites (Wyoming, Ohio) holds the top time in the 5,000m run by more than 45 seconds, with her school-record 15:45.31. She'll be looking for her second national title of the year (after she won the junior cross country championship in February), and will also be aiming for the American junior record at 5,000m. An All-American in both cross country and 5,000m at the NCAA Championships, Stites currently ranks fifth all-time in the event, and needs to run faster than 15:36.95 to beat the mark set by Molly Huddle of Notre Dame back in 2003.
Also competing at the junior championships will be men's throwers
Taylor Frenia (Virginia Beach, Va.) and
Bob Smutsky (Dillsburg, Pa.). Frenia is seeded 11th in the shot put with his put of 16.35 meters (53-7.75) from CNU in late April, and will throw second in the competition on Thursday. He took second in the shot put at the CAA Championships, and third also in the discus to help the Tribe win the conference team title. Smutsky, the CAA Champion in the javelin, is ranked fourth this weekend with a throw of 67.77m (222-4). That performance came at the NCAA Semifinals, where he was 15th overall and just missed advancing to the finals. Also a talented sprinter, Smutsky was an IC4A qualifier at 200m both indoors and out, with a best time of 21.68 seconds. Like Frenia, he is also slated to throw second in the rotation when his event comes up on Saturday.
All three of the Tribe's junior-eligible athletes (will not turn 20 until 2014) have already surpassed the qualifying standards for the Pan-Am Junior Championships, which will be held Aug. 23-25 in Medellin, Colombia. To be eligible for selection, they will have to finish top-eight in their events, and of those eight the two highest-finishing athletes who ask to go will make up Team USA. Selection would mark the first national-team appearances for both Frenia and Smutsky, and the third for Stites who ran for the Red, White, and Blue at the BUPA Great Edinburgh Challenge and the World Cross Country Championships.
In the alumni ranks, W&M will be represented by two all-time greats.
Christo Landry '08, who is currently sponsored by Mizuno, is the 11th-seed in the 10,000m at the USAT&F Senior Championships. Landry has already met the "B" standard for the World Championships in August, and will need to finish in the top-three to make the national team. Landry, who was a three-time All-American in cross country for the Tribe, previously wore a USA singlet at the 2005 World Junior Cross Country Championships and was also part of the elite America team at the 2011 Izumo Ekiden Relay. In 2012, Landry finished seventh at the U.S. Cross Country Championships, and was the silver-medalist at both the 15K and 25K road championships.
Saturday,
Brandon Heroux '12 will compete in the javelin at the Canadian Championships. Sporting the jersey of the Ottawa Lions, Heroux ranks sixth in the javelin in Canada so far this season, with a throw of 69.18m (227-0). A financial analyst at J.P. Morgan, he became the first throwing All-American for W&M since 1982 with his first eighth-place finish in the javelin at the 2012 NCAA Championships. Heroux represented Canada at the NACAC U-23 Championships last summer, and will need to throw further than 81.00m (265-9) to breach the World Championship qualifying standard. He has already surpassed the qualifying mark for the Francophone Games, which will be held Sept. 6-15 in Nice, France.