Liberty University
Coastal Carolina Invitational
Galeone, Women's Hurdlers Break Records
3/11/2011 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
Liberty redshirt senior Elliot Galeone improved his own school record in the men's javelin, while Krystle Matthews, Rachel Houseknecht, Christina Mitchell and Olivia Charnuski teamed up to break the Liberty women's shuttle hurdles record. Their efforts highlighted a successful opening day of the 2011 outdoor track & field season, Friday at the Coastal Carolina Invitational.
Men's Meet Recap
Galeone, an NCAA national qualifier in the javelin in 2010, picked up right where he left off a year ago. His fifth throw sailed 226-9, breaking the school record of 224-3 he had set at the 2010 IC4A meet. In the process, Galeone qualified for this season's IC4A championship and won the event by more than eight feet over Coastal Carolina's Jason Flanagan.
Galeone's impressive series of six javelin attempts also included stellar efforts of 222-3, 221-6 and 215-11.
Geren Woodbridge backed up Galeone's performance with a fifth-place javelin finish. The redshirt senior's top effort of the day reached 182-4.
Ryan Smith made it two IC4A qualifiers on Friday, thanks to a 175-1 heave in the hammer throw. The redshirt sophomore, who improved his distance on each of his four legal throws, ended up fourth in the competition.
Women's Meet Recap
The Lady Flames' shuttle hurdles relay quartet clocked a time of 58.77 seconds, bettering the mark of 59.10 set at the 2009 Penn Relays. Three of the four legs from the previous record-setting squad (Matthews, Houseknecht and Charnuski) were also part of Friday's grouping. The only change was the replacement of since-graduated Marie Williams with Mitchell.
Mitchell and Matthews also performed well in the javelin on Friday, placing third and fifth, respectively. Mitchell added more than 11 feet to her personal best, topping out at 134-3. She now ranks No. 7 in program history, after uncorking the longest javelin throw by a Lady Flame since 2007. Matthews' best throw of the day stretched the tape to 119-7.
A full day of action is scheduled at the Coastal Carolina Invitational on Saturday. Things will get started at 9 a.m., with the men's discus, women's high jump, women's pole vault and women's 5K.
