Young Virginia Women's Indoor Track Team Looks To Senior Leadership As Season Begins

The Virginia women's track and field team is looking to carry momentum from a breakthrough cross country season to the indoor track beginning this week. In November, the Hoos finished 9th at the NCAA Cross Country Championships, an event they had not qualified for since 2015. UVA sprinters opened the season before the holiday break at the 2022 Liberty Kickoff in early December, but most of the team will begin action this weekend when the Cavaliers compete Friday and Saturday in the Virginia Tech Invitational against the Hokies, who are defending ACC Champs. 

Track teams are comprised of four main event groups: jumps, throws, sprints, and distance. Multi-event athletes, those who compete in the pentathlon, tend to split practice time with sprints, jumps, and throws and often compete in individual events for the bulk of the season while focusing on the pentathlon for championship competition. 

The Hoos are returning eight scoring performances from the 2022 ACC Championships and 19 top 10 marks from the UVA record book. They will also return all four members of the 4th place (ACC) 4x400 meter relay and three of the four members on the school record holding Distance Medley Relay (DMR). Last year’s team finished 5th at the ACC Championship and 47th at the NCAA Championships held in Birmingham, Alabama. The Hoos’ 2 points at the NCAA meet came from a 7th place finish in the DMR. Virginia will likely be looking to break onto the podium at the ACC Championship and put together a more competitive national team, which it did in the fall cross country season. 

Virginia Sprints

UVA sprinters are led by the duo of Jada Seaman (Jr.) and Kayla Bonnick (Soph.), who rank No. 2 and No. 4 in the school record book for the 60-meter event plus No. 2 and No. 7 in the 200-meter race. Seaman was Virginia’s top scorer at the 2022 ACC meet by finishing 5th in the 60m, 3rd in the 200m, and 4th as a leg on the 4x400m relay. In recent years, the ACC has been more competitive in distance events, so the Hoos will need to steal some points in the 60m, 60m hurdles, 200m, and 400m to end the season with a team trophy.  

Alix Still (Sr.) has been a consistent performer for the Virginia women over the past four years. She sits at No. 6 for the 60m hurdles in the UVA record book, but that is not her primary event. Still finished 5th this past season at the ACC Indoor Championship for the pentathlon and is No. 3 in UVA history. While she did not qualify for the NCAA Championship this past year, Still finished 13th at the meet in 2021. The Scotland native will be looking to help lead her UVA squad one final time. 

UVA Jumps

Speaking of Seaman, the Junior is the Virginia school record holder in the Long Jump. She won the ACC title in 2020 and 2021, but struggled last year and missed out on the top eight (scoring finish). Seaman has shown immense improvement as a sprinter over the past year, but her long jump results have wavered. 

The Hoos have heavily invested in their pole vault contingency over the last several years with five of their top 10 performers currently on the roster. The squad is led by Maya Maloney (Jr.), who is No. 2 in the UVA record book. Maloney struggled at the ACC Championships last year and fell short of a scoring mark; however, Trina Barcarola (Soph.) had the best day of her indoor career and finished with a personal best mark to score one point in 8th place.

Virginia Throws

Ashley Anumba (Sr.) will lead the way for the Hoos after joining the team last year as a graduate transfer. She sits at No. 5 in UVA history for shot put and put together a PR to finish 5th at the ACC Championships last February. Anumba’s primary event is the discus throw, which is contested only in the outdoor season. Last June, she competed at the Outdoor NCAA Championships and finished 15th. Her experience in championship environments will be helpful for a throws unit that is rebuilding under a new coach, Steve Lemke, who joins the program after 15 seasons at the University of Florida.

Martin Maric, who coached several NCAA Champions at UVA, joined the USC Trojans as their throws coach after a 10-year stint at Virginia. Defending ACC shot put champ, Maria De Aviz, transferred to Michigan this year. Her departure is a big hit to the throws squad so the pressure is on Coach Lemke to continue the strength of UVA in the throwing events. 

UVA Distance

The distance squad is led by Margot Appleton (Soph.) and Alahna Sabbakhan (Jr). Appleton finished 5th in the mile at last year’s ACC final with a huge PR of 4:37.4 and anchored the runner-up DMR team. Appleton was the top finisher for the Hoos in four of the six cross country races this fall. Sabbakhan broke the 800m school record this past year and had a break-through 4th place finish in last year’s ACC Championship race. She is also a member of the 4x400m relay and will likely make some appearances on the DMR. 

Sophie Atkinson (Soph.), Camryn Menninger (Fr.), and Anna Workman (Soph.) are three people to watch after very successful cross-country seasons. These three women were consistent scorers for the No. 9 cross country team. Workman qualified for the NCAA East Regional meet this past outdoor season, while Atkinson and Menninger have yet to compete in a college track meet at Virginia. 

The distance squad was significantly elevated due to an influx of transfers this summer with the most decorated one being Esther Seeland (Sr.). The transfer from Messiah is a three-time Division II National Champion. She won two titles at 800m and one at 1500m. Her move to Virginia creates an extra exciting storyline because she will likely run into Lindsey Butler of Virginia Tech multiple times throughout the year. Butler is the defending ACC and NCAA champ at 800m. 

This past week, Mia Barnett (Soph.), announced she is transferring to UCLA for the spring semester. Barnett helped the Hoos to their top-10 finish at the NCAA Cross Country meet. Last indoor season, Barnett broke the school record in the mile (4:33.54) as a freshman and finished 4th at the ACC Championship. She was also a member of the record-breaking DMR team and finished 10th in the mile at the 2022 NCAA indoor championship. 

A Look At The Season

After the meet this weekend, Virginia will return to Blacksburg Jan. 20 and 21 to compete in the Hokie Invitational. The Hoos will end the month in State College at the Penn State National meet on the Jan. 27 and 28. From there, the season will build through multiple events leading up to the ACC Indoor Championships from Feb. 23-25 and the NCAA Championships from March 9-11.