Liberty Collegiate Invitational Set to Begin on Friday
4/5/2017 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
Meet Schedule
Live Results
Heat Sheets
Performance List
Lynchburg Weather
Liberty will open its 2017 outdoor track & field home schedule on Friday and Saturday, when the Flames and Lady Flames play host to the Liberty Collegiate Invitational at the Matthes-Hopkins Track Complex.
The invitational, which will feature athletes from 26 different colleges, is slated to begin Friday at noon with the men's shot put. Saturday's events will get started at 10:15 a.m., when the heptathlon long jump, women's pole vault and women's hammer get underway.
Admission is free of charge, and all events with the exception of the men's and women's hammer will take place at Osborne Stadium. Saturday's hammer events will be contested at the new throwing area located down the road from the Liberty Indoor Track Complex.
How to Follow the Flames and Lady Flames
Live results will be available throughout the meet.
Additionally, periodic updates will be posted to the Liberty Gameday (@LUGameday) Twitter account during the meet.
Weather Report
Friday's weather forecast for Lynchburg calls for overcast skies, cool temperatures (high around 50 degrees) and a gusty 20-30 MPH wind out of the west.
Saturday's weather should be more pleasant, with sunny skies and a temperature reaching into the mid 60s.
Scouting the Competition
For the second straight weekend, Liberty will square off against a number of Big South Conference foes, including High Point, Radford and Winthrop.
Other NCAA Division I squads slated to appear in the Liberty Collegiate Invitational include Hampton, James Madison, North Carolina A&T and UNCG.
Many events have abnormally large field sizes, headlined by the men's 200 (80 entrants), women's 200 (75 entrants), men's 1,500 (70 entrants), heptathlon (23 entrants) and decathlon (20 entrants).
Mapping Out the Multis
The decathlon will begin Friday at 1 p.m., as Liberty senior Zach Davis and freshman Markus Ballengee make their outdoor season debut in the multi events.
Davis, the defending Big South decathlon champion, owns a personal-best score of 7,171 points. Ballengee will make his decathlon debut after placing second in the Big South heptathlon and third in the IC4A heptathlon indoors. Their top competitor could be High Point's Pablo Romero Gonzalez, who captured the 2017 Big South heptathlon title as a freshman.
Lady Flames sophomore Kylie Polsgrove will make her 2017 heptathlon debut, beginning Friday at 1:15 p.m. After placing third in the 2016 Big South heptathlon competition, she won the 2017 Big South pentathlon title. She could be challenged by Slippery Rock's Sabrina Anderson, an NCAA Division II All-American in the pentathlon and heptathlon.
Record Breaker
Liberty redshirt freshman Jovaine Atkinson will compete in the men's 110 hurdles Saturday at 2:25 p.m., one week after clocking a school-record time of 14.12 at the VertKlasse Meeting. Prior to Saturday, the Liberty men's 110 hurdles record had stood since 1998.
Atkinson will square off against Hampton sophomore Charles Graham. He will be making his 110 hurdles season debut after winning the 2017 MEAC and IC4A indoor 60 hurdles titles.
Lady Flame Throwers
The Liberty women's throwers have gotten off to a strong start this season and currently top the Big South performance list in the shot put (Dasiana Larson), discus (Holly Arey), hammer (Larson) and javelin (Brenna Smith).
All of the Lady Flames' top throwers are slated to compete at home this weekend, including Arey and Catherine Oyarzun in the discus Friday at 1:45 p.m., Larson and Arey in the shot put Friday at 4:45 p.m., Larson, Oyarzun and Arey in the hammer Saturday at 10:15 a.m. and Smith and Nicole Bishop in the javelin Saturday at 1:15 p.m.
Larson, who celebrated her 21st birthday on Tuesday, will match up with CIAA champion Phontavia Sawyer (48-2.5 personal best) in the shot put on Friday. Coming off of a personal-best 195-6 hammer effort at the VertKlasse Meeting, Larson's top Saturday competitors in the event will be former teammate and All-American Jocelyn Williams (210-5 personal best), Jamaican Natalie Grant (204-11 personal best) and Tiffin's Miranda Mondozzi (188-8 personal best), an NCAA Division II All-American.
Friday's women's discus competition will feature a rematch between Arey and High Point's Makenzi Holmes-DiGiovine. Arey threw a personal-best 156-4 to get the upper hand on Holmes-DiGiovine at last week's VertKlasse Meeting. However, Holmes-DiGiovine's last trip to Liberty resulted in a first-place discus finish at the 2016 Big South Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
For the first time, the men's and women's hammer will be contested at the new throwing area located near the Liberty Indoor Track Complex. The road leading back to the throwing facility may be found directly across the street from the Fairfield Inn & Suites. The hotel's address is 3777 Candlers Mountain Road, Lynchburg, VA 24502. That road goes past intramural fields, the Liberty Indoor Track Complex, the under-construction Liberty Natatorium and finally reaches the throwing cage.
Saving the Best for Last
Saturday's final two field events (men's pole vault at 3:30 p.m., men's javelin at 4:45 p.m.) will be two of the Flames' top events this season.
Junior Carson Waters has only been defeated by one collegiate opponent in his first three outdoor meets of 2017 and has cleared a season-best 16-6. On Saturday, the Florida native will match up against Michael Cyphers, a Wake Forest alum who owns a personal best of 16-9.5.
In the men's javelin, sophomore Denzel Pratt (226-4 personal best) and redshirt freshman Samuel Arter (210-2 personal best) have already punched their tickets to the NCAA Division I East Preliminary Round meet. Meanwhile, freshman teammates Alexander Hoffsmith (192-2 personal best) and Caleb Hart (189-10 personal best) are each off to a strong start to their collegiate careers. All four Flames are scheduled to throw the javelin on Saturday.
Senior Zach Davis, who boasts a 202-2 personal best in the javelin, will be competing in the decathlon this weekend. The decathletes are scheduled to throw the javelin Saturday at 3:30 p.m., just prior to the men's javelin competition.
Big South's Best
Five weeks before the 2017 Big South Outdoor Track & Field Championships take place, Liberty ranks No. 1 in the conference in a number of events.
In men's events, Liberty's Big South leaders include Jovaine Atkinson (110 Hurdles), Ryan Davis (400 Hurdles), Spencer Jamison (400), Darrel Jones (Triple Jump), Denzel Pratt (Javelin), Stephen Racanelli (200), Jack Tidball (5K), Carson Waters (Pole Vault) and the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay squads.
Lady Flames currently leading the conference include Holly Arey (Discus), Tanner Ealum (400), Jessie Glynn (Pole Vault), Dasiana Larson (Shot Put and Hammer), Brenna Smith (Javelin), Anna Van Wyk (1,500 and 5K), Erin Zappia (High Jump) and the 4 x 400 relay team.
Lexington Ledger
The 2017 NCAA Division I East Preliminary Round meet will be contested May 25-27 at the University of Kentucky Outdoor Track & Field Facility in Lexington, Ky.
At this early stage of the 2017 outdoor season, the following Flames and Lady Flames are in contention for a berth in the meet, which will determine the qualifiers for the 2017 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Lock – Azaria Kirwa (Men's 10K), Dasiana Larson (Women's Hammer), Denzel Pratt (Men's Javelin)
On the Bubble – Samuel Arter (Men's Javelin), Darrel Jones (Men's Triple Jump), Carson Waters (Men's Pole Vault)
