February 16, 2009

BLACK’S WIN HIGHLIGHTS RAMS STAY AT BOSTON INVITE
Freshman earns first win of collegiate career

BOSTON, Mass. – Just over two months into his career with the Virginia Commonwealth University men’s track and field team, freshman Ronnie Black (Newport News, Va.) is already one of the Rams’ most dangerous point scoring threats.

He continued his stellar debut season this past weekend with his first collegiate win as he led the Black & Gold to a strong showing at the Boston University Valentine Invitational.

Black won the jump off with two other competitors at the height of 6’6”jump in the high jump for the victory.

“Ronnie has had a great start to his career,” Head Coach Julian Spooner said. “We knew coming in that he was going to be a big part of our future. To get this production out of him already is great.”

Sophomore Brian Wallace (Portsmouth, Va.) had a great showing in the triple jump with a fifth-place overall finish and third-best collegiate finish. His final mark was 46’ 7 ½” in the event.

Junior DeAngelo Wilson (Richmond, Va.) is back on track for another outstanding year with the second-best finish by a collegiate athlete in the 55-meter dash.

A trio of distance runners had personal best weekends in Beantown.

Freshman Tyler Simmons (Woodbridge, Va.) started it off by taking nearly 10 seconds off his personal best in the 1000-meter with a time of 2:29.27.

Junior Piotr Dybas (Jaslo, Poland) and sophomore John Vial (Glen Allen, Va.) took over five seconds off their personal bests in the 3000-meter run with times of 8:24.50 and 8:43.32, respectively.

“I was pleased with our overall performance this weekend,” Spooner said. “The three distance guys showed great progress and it just goes to show that we have the ability to score in all areas this season. We really have great balance and depth on this year’s roster.”