App State women’s track and field traveled to Blacksburg, Virginia for the Hokie Invitational at Virginia Tech. The Mountaineers showed out, grabbing nearly a dozen podium finishes and breaking 2 program records.
Headlining App State’s success was a 1-2 finish in the women’s 800-meter, as freshman Josie Jackson and senior Addison Ollendick-Smith led the way home for victory. Jackson set a personal-best time of 2:13.24, while Ollendick-Smith recorded a season-best 2:15.28.
Junior Jayla Adams grabbed a second-place finish in the women’s 200-meter race, and sophomore Ja’Naya Linder followed suit with second place in the women’s 400-meter with a season-best time.
In the women’s pole vault, sophomore Lilly Nichols took home the runner-up spot with a clearance of 4.17 meters. Freshman Ashlynn Wimberly finished second in the women’s high jump event, jumping 1.66 meters.
The Black and Gold also netted top-five results in the women’s 1,000-meter, women’s mile, women’s long jump and women’s triple jump, as well as second through sixth in the women’s 300-meter. Additionally, the Mountaineers finished second in the women’s 4×400-meter relay and set a season-best time of 3:44.92 in the process, finishing less than a second behind Radford University for the race win.
App State set 2 new program records in the Hokie Invitational. In the women’s 300-meter, Adams’ time of 38.42 seconds broke the program record and secured her a second-place finish. Jackson set a new program benchmark in the 1,000-meter with a 2:52.62, which clinched a fourth-place finish in the event.
Overall, App State finished in the top-five 19 times and in the podium places 11 times across the weekend.
The Mountaineers will return to Blacksburg Feb. 6-7 for the Doc Hale VT Meet.
