CONFERENCE PREVIEW: Ten Events to Watch at the ACC Championships

NEW ORLEANS — Welcome to May, ACC teams. For years, the ACC championship has been the weekend before Penn Relays, essentially throwing their athletes into last chance mode for two full months before the NCAA outdoor meet. This year, the powers that be have moved the meet to the same weekend as the other four power conferences. We’ll have previews for all five of those big meets plus a sixth covering the rest of the country. Below are ten events to watch in Tallahassee.

Heat sheets | Schedule | Live results | Live stream links: Thursday, Friday, Saturday

All event times are in Eastern and for the finals. The live streams will be on ESPN3 (cable subscription required for non-college students) from 7-9:30 on Thursday and Friday and from 6-9:00 on Saturday.

Women’s javelin

Friday, 10:00 AM

One of the best events in this conference–four women in the top fifteen nationally–got a little easier, as Virginia Tech’s ninth-ranked Eva Vivod isn’t entered in the meet. Her Hokie teammate Irena Sediva has had one of the most meteoric entrances into the collegiate ranks, though: Sediva has thrown the javelin just two times as a collegian. Those two marks are two of the three best throws in the NCAA this year. Her 58.02m winning throw at the Florida Relays is better than the twenty-seven year-old facility record of 54.38 meters, though Sediva hasn’t competed in the five weeks since then.

This is a wild card of an event. Sediva has incredible potential–that throw at Florida is the tenth best in collegiate history. And though she’s experienced at winning big meets in the Czech Republic, this is her first ever collegiate conference meet.

Women’s pole vault

Friday, 5:30 PM

With Demi Payne and Sandi Morris rightfully soaking up all of the attention, records, and championships in 2015, here’s a question: who’s the third best vaulter in the country? Duke’s Megan Clark finished second at indoor nationals when Payne no-heighted, and is one of only eight collegiate women to have ever cleared 4.50m indoors and outdoors.

As good as Clark has been for the last year, she’s gotten much more consistent in 2015. She had a good enough PR to win indoor and outdoor ACCs in 2014, but lost indoors on tiebreakers and only managed to clear 4.28m at her outdoor conference meet. This year, her second-place finish behind Morris at indoor NCAAs is her only loss to a collegian. (She no-heighted at the Millrose Games but was the only collegian entered)

Clark won indoor ACCs in just four jumps. Expect more of the same this weekend.

Men’s shot put

Friday, 6:00 PM

Mihaljevic and Young went 1-2 at ACC indoors, though they did so in very different fashion: Young’s first two throws were the two best of the meet through five rounds, but Young fouled three of his last four throws and Mihaljevic won it on his last throw with a 18.88m toss. Both have massively stepped up from indoors, where Young didn’t make it to nationals and Mihaljevic finished fourteenth at NCAAs.

Men’s steeplechase

Friday, 9:00 PM

If there’s a such thing, King is a hard-luck defending champion even though he’s been healthy and running well. His path to repeating as the ACC steeple champion seemed relatively clear after the first six finishers behind him in the 2014 steeple all, in one way or another, bowed out of this year’s meet. MJ Erb transferred to Mississippi, Jared Berman graduated, Shaun Thompson redshirted outdoors, Joseph Whelan graduated, and North Carolina’s Steve Magnuson and Dan Mykityshyn haven’t competed outdoors in 2015.

But winning a major conference in a distance event two years in a row never comes easy. Florida State’s Zak Seddon knows that; after winning the ACC steeple and running 8:34 in 2014, he only ran 8:58 in 2015. And Louisville and 8:39 steepler Edwin Kibichiy joined the the ACC from The American. King, Seddon, and Kibichy have three conference championships in the steeple between them over the last two years.

This should be one of the spiciest non-Pac-12 distance races of the weekend.

Men’s triple jump

Saturday, 2:00 PM

Williams didn’t compete last outdoor season. After two stellar indoor seasons–fourth and third at the last two indoor national championships–he’s ready for his closeup outdoors. He finished second behind Virginia Tech’s Manuel Ziegler at the ACC indoor meet, but Ziegler is likely injured. He’s only competed once outdoors and isn’t entered in the meet this weekend.

Women’s 1500

Saturday, 5:20 PM

Quigley is abdicating the steeplechase title (she’s won the event at this meet the last two years) to compete in the much deeper 1500. The ACC women’s 1500 might get even tougher in 2017, as Danielle Aragon’s younger sister Christine ran 4:16 at Stanford, making her one of the fastest American high school girls ever. But we digress.

Since finishing second to Clemson’s Alyssa Kulik in the 2012 ACC steeple, Quigley has won or finished second to a teammate in eight of the nine conference track races that she’s been in. Most recently, she won mile at indoor conferences by a second and a half over Aragon and ten seconds over Farber. LeHardy elected for the 3k and 5k indoors, and might be the biggest threat to Quigley here. Farbar and Aragon did beat her at the Virginia Challenge, though.

Men’s 1500

Saturday, 5:30 PM

It’s been difficult to discuss the NCAA men’s 1500 this year without mentioning the elephant in the room–the possibility of Ed Cheserek running the event at NCAAs. With the Pac-12 entries out, we can put that speculation to bed: the event is wide open. Ches isn’t entered in the 1500 at his conference meet, and therefore won’t qualify for the NCAA first round, and therefore won’t have a chance to replicate his insane triple from indoor nationals.

That leaves Cristian Soratos and a bunch of slightly less pedigreed dudes with some suddenly realistic national championship aspirations. One of those dudes is Syracuse’s Canadian sensation Justyn Knight, who skipped indoors to run the junior race at World Cross Country. In his two open outdoor races in a Syracuse uniform, he’s broken a fifty-three year old Canadian junior record in the 5k and a forty-three year old Syracuse school record in the 1500. What will he do in the third?

Women’s 400

Saturday, 6:00 PM

2015 ACC indoors went Bamgbose-Wimbley-Funderburk, but then Funderburk was the first ACC finisher in the 400 final at nationals, where Wimbley failed to make it out of the prelims. And now Wimbley has a faster PR than Funderburk or Bamgbose.

To recap: Funderburk has the best national finish, Bamgbose has the best ACC finish, and Wimbley has the best time. With three women in the top ten nationally and none of them the clear favorite, this might be the best event of the weekend. Funderburk has one small edge: she’s not running the 4×100, which is just an hour before the 400. All three are also entered in the 200 and 4×400, but Wimbley and Bamgbose are also entered in the 4×1.

Natoya Goule is also entered here. More on her below.

Men’s 100

Saturday, 6:30 PM

Williams is the world junior champ, the ACC indoor 60m champ, and the fastest man in the ACC this year. He’s an easy pick for the win, unless his teammate Trentavis Friday can somehow recapture the magic that got him to wind-legal 10.00 at US juniors last summer.

Women’s 800

Saturday, 6:40 PM

Natoya Goule has three times more national championships than conference championships in her short NCAA career. In 2013 at LSU, she won two national titles and one conference title in the 800. This year at Clemson, she has one national title and zero conference titles in the event.

Virginia Tech’s Hanna Green pulled off the upset indoors, and has chopped half a second from her 800 PB–from 2:03.18 to 2:02.62–since then. A repeat is unlikely: in Goule’s three collegiate stops at South Plains, LSU, and Clemson, she’s never lost an open outdoor 800 to a collegian. But that sample is balanced out by Goule’s tendency to lose at conference meets (see above), her getting outkicked by Annie Leblanc at Penn, and the fact that if she makes the 400 final (she’s entered and has the seventh best PB in the field), that race is only forty minutes before the 800 final.

That’s a lot of words for the ultimate conclusion to be "we don’t know." Those three words make track meets a lot more fun.