Liberty University
ECAC/IC4A Indoor Track Championships
Lady Flames Finish 5th at ECAC Championship
3/8/2015 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
Liberty senior Abigail Flower placed second in the ECAC 60 dash final and broke her own program record in the 200 on Sunday, helping the Lady Flames place fifth in the final ECAC team standings at the 2015 IC4A and ECAC Division I Indoor Track & Field Championships at the Boston University Track and Tennis Center. The Liberty men's squad ended up eighth in the IC4A standings, aided by a third-place finish in Sunday's 4 x 800 relay final.
The Lady Flames finished with 43 points for their second consecutive top-five finish at this meet. After placing a program-best third at the 2014 ECAC indoor meet, Liberty came in fifth this time around, 10 points behind champion Connecticut (53 points).
The Liberty men's squad totaled 28.5 points for eighth place in the final IC4A standings. Monmouth took home the IC4A title with 58 points.
ECAC Day Three Recap
Flower's 60 time of 7.54 made her the third Lady Flame to earn runner-up honors at the three-day meet, joining Riley Brandon (pentathlon) and Jocelyn Williams (weight throw).
Less than 24 hours after running a school-record 200 dash time of 24.24 seconds in Saturday's prelims, Flower sped to a new record time of 24.14 in the final for a fifth-place finish. The effort moves her into a tie for second place on the Big South's all-time indoor 200 list.
Janae Jones added three points to the Lady Flames' team score on Sunday, triple jumping a season-best 40-0.5 for sixth place.
IC4A Day Three Recap
The Flames' 4 x 800 quartet of Andrew Crowell, Trevor Hope, Jacob Onifer and John Sherret were part of a blanket finish, which saw the top four teams (Rhode Island, Bucknell, Liberty and Saint Joseph's) cross the line within 0.19 seconds of each other. Liberty came away third in a season-best time of 7:31.01, with Sherret clocking the race's second-fastest anchor leg split (1:50.41).
Freshman Darrel Jones reached a season-best 49-5.75 for fourth place in the triple jump. He finished four spots ahead of teammate Aklesso Agama, who came in eighth at 48-9.5.
Ken Ritchey equaled his career-best pole vault clearance of 16-2.75 for the second straight meet, sharing sixth place in the event.
Stephen Racanelli just missed scoring points in the IC4A 200 final, crossing the line in 21.86 for ninth place in the final standings.
With the 2014-15 indoor season now complete, Liberty will immediately transition into the 2015 outdoor track & field campaign. The Flames and Lady Flames will open the season at the Coastal Carolina Invitational, slated for Friday and Saturday in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
