Georgia junior Nick Vena of Whippany placed third in the shot put, earning his first points at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore. Vena, a Morristown graduate who still holds three national class records, threw 66-1.75 on his second throw of the preliminaries.
Ryan Crouser of Texas finished first, with 69-3.5 on his final throw of the competition.
Vena has appeared in five NCAA championships, placing ninth indoors this winter. Vena has qualified for the USATF Outdoor Championships in Sacramento next week.
“Just to be consistent around that 66 mark is good for me, especially at such a big meet,” said Vena, who will be the Morris Twp. recreation department’s summer sports director when he returns home in July. “Coming out of high school, I had to fix a lot of things. I couldn’t get away with the things I was doing with the 12-pound (shot) with the 16. In these two years I’ve been at Georgia, I have been really refining and working on my technique to allow me to hit positions to give me a chance. It’s starting to show now.”
Princeton freshman Megan Curham finished 11th in the 10K at the NCAA Championships at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. She finished in 33:29.03, earning second-team All-America honors.
Emma Bates of Boise State edged UAB senior Elinor Kirk to win by 64 hundredths of a second (32:32.35).
Curham, a Villa Walsh alumna, had the fastest splits on laps 2, 3 and 9. She was seventh after four of the 25 laps, and reached fifth at 3,600 meters. Curham held 11th place for the final six laps to take All-America honors for the second time. In the fall, she became the first Princeton freshman to be a cross country all-America.
“It was really cool to come out here,” Curham said in a statement. “At Regionals, what I really liked was all the competition. With the small dual meets in-season, you’re running by yourself or with just a few other people, but at Regionals it was exciting because you’re with a lot of people and here it was even moreso. You know going into the race you know you’re going to have someone to run with and that’s really exciting to me.”
Coppin State grad student Christina Epps of Morristown finished 14th in the triple jump (41-9¾). The record-holder in both the indoor and outdoor triple, Epps was named Coppin State’s female Athlete of the Year and also received the President’s Eagle Female Athlete of the Year.
Harvard junior Erika Veidis of Sparta placed fifth in her heat of the 800 (2:06.03), 16th overall. Dylan Capwell of Hopatcong, the first Monmouth male to qualify for the NCAA Championships and one of just two freshmen who qualified in the 800, finished seventh in his heat (1:51.18) and 23rd overall.
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