SU steeples shine on second night of ACC Championships

Led by steeples Noah Affolder, Aidan Tooker and Paige Stoner, SU picked up more points in the ACC Outdoor Track and Field Championship Friday night.

In the men’s 3000-meter steeplechase, Affolder (8:46.22) and Tooker (8:48.63) secured first and second place for the Orange, earning SU 18 points to build on their strong first night. While Affolder, a freshman, held off Virginia Tech’s challenger, Tooker recovered from his fall into the water trap on the second-to-last lap and burst into second place.

In Stoner’s race, the sophomore took an early lead and never looked back. She breezed to a first-place finish and shattered the ACC Championship record with a 9:50.42 time. With her personal and school-best, she beat the next-fastest competitor by 17 seconds in the women’s 3000-meter steeplechase.

Tooker, Affolder and Stoner have excelled at the steeplechase this year, despite a lack of focus on specific training for the event.

“What we try to do is find really good athletes that it comes naturally to,” SU head coach Chris Fox told The Daily Orange in April. “Paige is natural at it, Noah is natural at it and Aidan is natural at it, those are our steeples.”

Matt Moore, Angelo Goss and Richard Floyd finished 2-3-4 in the preliminary men’s 100-meter hurdles and will compete for the Orange in tomorrow’s final event. David Gilstrap, Kelvin Almonte and Jamil Adams did not make the cut.

In the women’s 400-meter race, junior Kadejhia Sellers won her heat and advanced to the finals.

Senior Winston Lee finished second in his heat and qualified for the men’s 100-meter final.

In the women’s 100-meter hurdles, neither Tia Thevenin, Danielle Delgado nor Aviana Goode qualified for the final. Thevenin was the closest, finishing 0.31 off the qualifying edge and 0.69 seconds off the leader, Florida State University’s Cortney Jones.

Dasia Pressley, Imani Clark, Justice Richardson and Eunice Boateng also failed to qualify in their event, the women’s 100-meter dash.

With one more day of competition, the Syracuse men sit in third place with 41 points and the women are in ninth with 15 points.