Men’s Track Holds Fourth Place after Day One of ACC Championships

February 20, 1999

BLACKSBURG, Va. –The Clemson men’s track and field team is in fourth place with 19 points after Friday’s competition at the ACC Men’s Track and Field Championships. North Carolina leads the meet with 41 points, followed by Florida State(27 points) and N.C.State(24 points).

In the field event finals held on Friday, Tiger freshman Keith Rzewuski was fourth in the shot put competition with a throw of 53’7″, and senior Tom Hopkins was seventh in the event with a throw of 49’10 1/2″. Freshamn Mark Jellison was eighth in the long jump competition with a jump of 23’5 1/2″.

Senior Joe Gibson placed third in the finals of the 5,000m with a time of 14:26.14, and the Tiger team of Mike Connelly, Davidson Gill, Shaun Murphy and Ryan Demers placed fourth with a time of 10:06.99 in the distant medley relay. The time was Clemson’s best of the season by 15 seconds.

The preliminaries of several running events were completed during Friday’s competition. Clemson sophomore Sultan Tucker led all runners in the 60m hurdles with a provisional qualifying time of 7.80, and freshman Todd Matthews qualified for the finals with a time of 8.12. In the 60m, Clemson junior Shawn Crawford led all qualifiers with a provisional qualifying time of 6.71. Junior Charles Allen qualified for the finals with a time of 6.80, and senior Kenny Franklin made thr finals at 6.85.

Clemson placed five runners in the finals of the 200m, including Crawford, who ran an NCAA Automatic Qualifying time of 20.80. Freshman Ato Modibo made the finals with a time of 21.45, and juior Charles Allen qualified for the finals in 21.53. Freshman Anthony Moorman and senior Kenny Franklin made the finals with times of 21.56 and 21.57, respectively.

In the 400m, Clemson freshman Ato Modibo had the fastest qualifying mark with a provisional qualifying time of 46.88, and senior Davidson Gill had the third-fastest time in the 800m (1:54.20) to qualify for Saturday’s finals. Senior Esteban Diaz had the second-fastest qualifying time in the mile at 4:15.92, and Ryan Demers qualified in the same event with a time of 4:17.23.

Field event competition begins Saturday at 10am, and the finals of the running events will commence at 1pm.