Virginia Athletics
Highlight Hoos 2021-2022: Owayne Owens | UVA Track & Field
With the 2021-2022 Virginia athletics season officially completed, we enter the college sports offseason optimistic for things to come for the Cavaliers next season. But with the fall seasons still a month away, we have time to take a look back at some of the incredible athletic accomplishments achieved by UVA student athletes during the 2021-2022 sports year in a series called Highlight Hoos.
So far, we've covered Diana Ordóñez (Virginia women's soccer), Mia Barnett (Virginia cross country and track & field), Leo Afonso (Virginia men's soccer), Brooklyn Borum (Virginia volleyball), Amber Ezechiels (Virginia field hockey), Alex Walsh and Kate Douglass (Virginia swimming), Dontayvion Wicks (Virginia football), Jay Aiello (Virginia wrestling), Jayden Gardner (Virginia men's basketball), Rachel Clark (Virginia women's lacrosse), Matt Moore (Virginia men's lacrosse), Leah Boggs (Virginia softball), and Jake Gelof (Virginia baseball).
Today, we review the senior season of Owayne Owens, who put together impressive showings in both the indoor and outdoors seasons for the Virginia track and field program. As a long jump and triple jump specialist, Owens was the top Cavalier performer in both events.
In the indoor season, Owens scored his personal best 16.60 meters in the triple jump at the Tiger Paw Invitational in February. Not only did he win the event with this distance, but he added his name to the record books, recording the third best indoor triple jump distance in Cavalier history.
Owens' best long jump of 2022 was 7.40 meters, which would be a top-10 performance all time in the Virginia record books if he didn’t already hold the record from a long jump in the 2021 indoor season as his personal best jump.
Owens won the indoor triple jump at the ACC Championships for the second consecutive year, earning him First-Team All-ACC honors. At the NCAA Championships, he finished eighth overall and was a First-Team All-American.
In the outdoor season, Owens managed the second best triple jump in Virginia history at the Penn Relays with a 16.61 meter jump. His best long jump of the 2022 season was 7.28 meters at the Duke Invitational, which took place a few weeks earlier and tied him for the best team performance with Ayende Watson.
At the ACC Championships, Owens took home the silver medal in the triple jump to earn first team All-ACC honors. Finally, he placed 19th at the NCAA Championships in the long jump.
At the end of the season, Owayne Owens was named as a first team CoSIDA Academic All-American member. He is the first UVA men’s track and field athlete to earn this honor as well as the first men’s track and field athlete to be an Academic All-American more than once. Owens has excelled both on the track and in the classroom, and exemplifies what it means to be a student athlete.
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