Great First Day For Dawgs At National Relays

Friday, April 26

Fayetteville, AR

TBD

University of Washington

National Relay Championships

April 26, 2019 | Track & Field

By: UW Athletic Communications

2019 National Relay Championships
Fayetteville, Ark. | John McDonnell Field
Apr. 25-27

Live Results | Event Schedule

Live Stream on SEC Network
Saturday

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Washington track and field put up fourteen new personal-bests today along with a total of six new or improved marks on the school's top-10 lists, making the most of the first of the two days at the National Relay Championships at Arkansas.

The actual relay races for the Huskies at the National Relays will come on Saturday, with entries in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, as the Dawgs look to post NCAA Preliminary qualifiers in those events. Friday at John McDonnell Field the focus was on the individuals, but the Husky sprinters still operated like a cohesive unit, as they accounted for eleven of the team's PRs.

In addition to the personal-bests, the Huskies got outright wins from Elijah Mason in the men's discus and Darhian Mills in the women's 400m hurdles, and Annika Dayton in her section of the women's pole vault, to go along with Onyie Chibuogwu's win in the women's hammer on Thursday.

Even with all the personal-bests, the performance that most jumped off the results page was the series of throws by fifth-year senior Denham Patricelli in the javelin. Patricelli's impressive career has been one of steady progress, but today he improved by leaps and bounds. With his first throw today, he exactly equaled his career-best coming in, throwing 223-8. But on his third attempt, he PR'd by seven feet, going to 230-11, also his first toss over the 70-meter mark. But then one throw later, Patricelli added six more feet, getting one out to 236-6, adding up to a 13-foot improvement midway through his final season.

The new mark jumped Patricelli to No. 9 on the Husky javelin top-10 list, one of the deepest lists in the UW recordbooks. He moves into a tie for fifth in the West Region this year and a tie for ninth nationally.

It was a collective group effort from the sprinters, but the big highlights were a 1-2 finish for the second-straight meet from Darhian Mills and Carly Lester in the hurdles, and then in the men's 200-meters, Huskies were victorious in three straight heats: Khalil Winfrey winning heat two, Kemuel Santana taking heat three, and Evan Mafilas winning heat four.

Mills got the 400m hurdles win, following up her big PR from a week ago by shaving another hair off that mark as she ran 58.33 to win. Lester came on strong out of lane nine to go under 59-seconds for the first time in her career at 58.84. Morganne Hill took fifth in the heat in another strong time of 59.43 seconds.

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The men's 200-meter heat wins were all PRs. Winfrey set the tone with a win in 21.53 seconds, then Santana took a couple of tenths off his PR to win his heat in 21.09. Mafilas then capped it with a win in 21.00, which got the sophomore into the Husky top-10 list at the No. 9 spot.

Earlier in the day, Santana, Winfrey, and Jordan Lucas all ran well in the 100-meters, all finishing within three-tenths of a second of each other. Lucas led the way in 10.57 seconds, a new PR, with Winfrey in 10.59 just .03 off his PR, and Santana clocking a PR of his own in 10.60.

In the 400-meters, Mafilas finished in 47.93 while junior Jason Palmer set a new PR of 48.15 seconds.

Freshman Cass Elliott took third in the 400-meter hurdles, where despite hitting a couple hurdles late, he still managed to run a personal-best time of 51.02 seconds, improving on his No. 6 time in school history and putting him 15th in the West Region.

Senior Imani Apostol was the one women's sprinter in the dashes, but she cashed in on two personal-bests as well. Apostol ran the 400-meters first in 54.69 seconds, which moved her onto the Husky top-10 list at the No. 8 spot. She then finished up with a 24.46 second PR in the 200-meters.

Both Husky pole vaulters in action today notched season's-bests. Chase Smith took third with a clearance of 17-8 1/2, a bar he made on his first attempt. That clearance ranks Smith 10th on the Husky outdoor top-10 list. Then junior Annika Dayton, who came into the meet exactly 48th on the West Region list, with 48 making the cut for the prelims, shot way up the list to a tie for 25th, as she cleared 13-7 1/4 today, just one inch shy of her career-best set last year at Pac-12s.

Elijah Mason got the discus victory today at 184-10, with sophomore Jonah Wilson earning himself a new PR at 179-3, improving his Regional chances in that event. Wilson will throw shot on Saturday.

Competing along with Patricelli in the javelin was sophomore Jacob Wachtendonk, and while it wasn't a PR, Wachtendonk still had one of the best tosses of his career as he threw 212-0.

In the women's discus, redshirt freshman Ginny Mehl was sixth at 155-9 and senior Onyie Chibuogwu took seventh at 153-3.

Saturday's action starts early, at 8 a.m. Pacific time, with the 4x100-meter relays, and will be televised live on the SEC Network.