January 12, 2009

WILSON, WALLACE LEAD RAMS AT NAVY INVITE
Wilson, Wallace and Norvell all post wins

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Two top-three finishes from junior standout DeAngelo Wilson (Richmond, Va.) and sophomore Brian Wallace (Portsmouth, Va.) highlighted a strong weekend for the Virginia Commonwealth University men’s track and field squad. The Rams finished third at this past weekend’s Navy Invitational, the first meet of the 2009 calendar year.

On the day, the Black and Gold posted eight top-three finishes on its way to claiming 86 points, just 14 points behind second place Penn. Princeton ran away with the team title with 222 points at the meet.

Wilson, who is the reigning CAA Outstanding Track Athlete, started his day with a second-place showing in the 60-meter dash where he finished just .01 seconds behind teammate Antonio Norvell (Portsmouth, Va.), who picked up his first win of the 2008-2009 campaign with a time of 6.98.

Wilson concluded his day by taking home the victory in the 200-meter dash with a blistering time of 22.12.

Wallace who started to emerge as a star at the end of last season continued his rise by grabbing a win in just the third event of the meet as his leap of 22’ 11” topped his nearest competitor by three inches. He followed that up with a third place finish in the triple jump with a mark of 46” ¾”.

The junior tandem of Jamal Blyden (Virginia Beach, Va.) and Piotr Dybas (Jaslo, Poland) posted second place finishes of their own at the meet. Blyden finished right behind Wilson in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.50, while Dybas’ time of 8:33.05 was just off the winning time of Navy’s Jonathan Grant.

Rounding out the top three finishers was freshman Brice Matthews (Dumfries, Va.) who finished third in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.99.

The Rams are back on the track when they compete in the Terrapin Invitational next Saturday on the campus of the University of Maryland.