Nunley, Crowley Give Deacs Strong Opening Day at UNC Invitational
Redshirt junior wins 60m hurdles; freshman takes fourth in 3,000m run

Jan. 27, 2012

Wake Forest Results | Women's Recap

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Wake Forest's men's track and field team enjoyed a strong first day at the UNC Invitational, earning a total of five top-five finishes inside the Eddie Smith Field House.

Redshirt junior Booker Nunley, already victorious in his first two 60m hurdles competitions this season, easily breezed to a third consecutive title and came very close to breaking the school record in the event along the way. His time in the finals of 7.83 represents a new personal-best and was just six-hundredths of a second off the pace of Steve Brown's school record of 7.77 that was set in 1991.

Also competing in the same event were Malcolm Nunley and Alex Hill, both of whom qualified for the finals. Nunley, who placed sixth two weeks ago at the Virginia Tech Invitational, earned a third-place finish with a time of 8.17, just slightly slower than his personal-best time of 8.15. Hill, normally a heptathlete, grabbed eighth place overall and matched his career-best time with a run of 8.56

Freshman Connor Crowley, despite competing for just the second time in his collegiate career, turned in a fantastic performance in the long-distance 3,000m run as the lone runner for the Deacs. He took fourth place and crossed the line in 8:59.43, a dramatic improvement of more than 10 seconds from his time in last week's Hokie Invitational. This quick improvement is an excellent start for the freshman from Blue Point, N.Y., as he seems poised to develop into yet another strong distance runner for Wake Forest.

In the only other track event of the day for the men, both Kyle Eager and Nate Guthals scored top-five finishes in the 600m run. Eager, who has experienced a breakout season thus far, earned third place after clocking in at 1:23.34, while Guthals was hot on his trail and finished just a split-second later at 1:23.46 to finish fourth overall. Anthony Marois completed the trio of Demon Deacons in the event by finishing in 1:25.25, good for an eighth-place finish.

Senior Alex Hill racked up additional practice for one of his heptathlon events by competing in the long jump competition in the only field event of the day for the men's side. The ever-reliable Hill tallied a sixth-place finish with a jump of 22-2.25 (6.76m) to conclude the day for the Deacs.

The Demon Deacons will continue the UNC Invitational tomorrow morning at 10:30 a.m. with the triple jump competition, and the meet is scheduled to conclude around 1:55 p.m. with the 4x400m relay. Live results can be found at http://durhamstriders.com/results/12unc2, and a full recap will be posted here on WakeForestSports.com following the conclusion of the meet.