April 3, 2008

Men's Results | Women's Results | Photo Gallery

Gainesville, FL - Despite a rain-shortened ending on Saturday, the University of Florida track & field team came away from the 2008 Pepsi Florida Relays on a positive note, piling up eight event wins and a dozen NCAA regional marks on the final day of its lone home meet this season.

UF's racked up a weekend total of 14 victories and 29 NCAA regional standards at Percy Beard Track. The event was shortened due to extreme weather in the Gainesville area on Saturday night.

"I'm disappointed that we had to cut the meet short, but it was a great Florida Relays weekend," Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. "With the number of personal bests and NCAA regional marks that we earned, this was a great meet for us across the board. We talk a lot about momentum, and we certainly have that going for us right now. That's a product of the great attitude our team came out with, not wanting to let anything go by the wayside."

The Gator men kicked off the day with a victory in the distance medley relay, as the quartet of freshman Anthony Morales (Palm Coast, Fla.), junior R.J. Anderson (Big Pine Key, Fla.), sophomore Ethan Philpot (Titusville, Fla.) and junior Scott Hans (Middlebury, Fla.) cruised to the win with a time of 10:13.01.

In his first meet at Percy Beard Track since winning the javelin at the 2007 NCAA East Regional, junior Adam Montague (Townsville, Australia) captured first place in the event with a top toss of 73.84m/242-3, falling just an inch shy of his career best. The mark moved last year's NCAA runner-up to second on the national descending order list, and strengthened his hold on third place on Florida's all-time chart. Freshman Doug Nelson (Tampa, Fla.) also posted a season-best in the javelin on Saturday, moving up to fifth in school history with a regional-qualifying heave of 65.56m/215-1 to finish third, while sophomore Mike Morrison (Chesapeake, Va.) posted his first-career regional mark in the event with a toss of 63.11m/207-1, moving up to seventh in school history.

As the afternoon began to turn into evening, the Gators' men's 4x100m unit of sophomore Jeremy Hall (Jacksonville, Fla.), freshman Terrell Wilks (New Haven, Conn.), junior Willie Perry (Lenoir, N.C.) and sophomore Calvin Smith (Lutz, Fla.) not only collected an NCAA regional-qualifying time with a mark of 39.66, which ties for fifth on the NCAA charts this year, but also collected the Dick Jones Award as the top collegiate finishers in the event. The effort was a season-best for the quartet, which also ran a 39.94 last weekend at the Hurricane Challenge.

Perry was on the track again nearly three hours later, capturing the top spot in the 200m with a time of 20.40. The effort would have been a career best for Perry, but the wind reading measured 3.3, thus negating any records the run could have set. Despite the wind, the mark still counted as an NCAA regional mark, and lowered Perry's already top-ranked standing on the NCAA descending order list. Hall took fifth in the event with a season-best and NCAA regional-qualifying time of 21.03, just two one-hundredths of a second, while Wilks finished in a tie for ninth with a career-best mark of 21.15, also a regional standard.

Junior Beau Burroughs (Tampa, Fla.) also earned top collegiate honors in his respective event, placing second overall in the men's shot put with an NCAA regional-qualifying mark of 17.05m/55-11.25, while classmate Eugene Martin (Gainesville, Fla.) posted the first regional-qualifying mark of his career in the high jump with a personal-best leap of 2.10m/6-10.75 to take fourth.

As rain clouds approached, Florida kept its winning ways going in the men's 4x800m relay, as freshman Solomon Taylor (Ocala, Fla.), senior Eric Alberter (Belleville, Ill.), freshman LaMarr Davis (Knightdale, N.C.) and outdoor sophomore Carlos Phillips (Winter Park, Fla.) clocked in at 7:29.95 to win the event by more than three seconds.

Sophomore Mariam Kevkhishvili (Tbilisi, Georgia) won the women's shot put on Saturday in her season debut, exploding for a career-best toss of 17.60m/57-9 to outdistance the next-best collegian by more than two feet. The heave moved the 2008 NCAA indoor shot put champion into third on the school's all-time outdoor list and tops the current NCAA descending order list.

The UF women swept the top two spots in the javelin, as sophomore Evelien Dekkers (Etten-Leur, The Netherlands) captured the win in her first outing of the season with an NCAA regional-qualifying mark of 50.23m/164-9. Sophomore Star Sansone (Boca Raton, Fla.) also added her name to the NCAA regional field with a runner-up mark of 44.43m/145-9.

The women's 4x100m relay squad of senior Abigail David (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago), senior Lakecia Ealey (Albany, Ga.), senior Dominique McLeggan (Weston, Fla.) and freshman Daniela Griffin (Jacksonville, Fla.) picked up an NCAA regional-qualifying time of 45.51 in the 4x100m relay, finishing fourth among the collegiate teams in the competition. Ealey was also in fine form later in the evening, winning the women's 200m with a wind-aided time of 22.76.

"Our goal this weekend was to get better across the board, and our home fans got to see us do that," Holloway said. "Sometimes it's hard to motivate your athlete when you're at home because they get to sleep in their own beds and so forth, but both the team and coaching staff did a great job with the way they approached this meet. There was a constant stream of improvement, and we did a great job of keeping the momentum going once we got it."

A select group of UF athletes will head west next week to compete at the Mesa Classic and the Sun Angel Classic, hosted by Mesa Junior College and Arizona State University, respectively.

Percy Beard Track Records Broken

Garrett Johnson - Men's Shot Put, 20.59m/67-6.75 (old record: 20.60m/67-7, Dorian Scott, 2007)

David Oliver - 110m hurdles, 13.10 (old record: 13.26, David Oliver, 2007)

Brittany Reese - Women's Long Jump, 6.89m/22-7.25 (old record: 6.60m/21-8, Marion Jones, 1997)

Elite 2008 - Men's Shuttle Hurdle Relay, 54.10 (old record: 54.76, Florida, 2004)

Pepsi Florida Relays Records Broken

Jeffery Demps - Men's 100m, 10.17 (old record: 10.28, Walter Dix, 2004)

Garrett Johnson - Men's Shot Put, 20.59m/67-6.75 (old record: 20.60m/67-7, Dorian Scott, 2007)

David Oliver - 110m hurdles, 13.10 (old record: 13.26, David Oliver, 2007)

Brittany Reese - Women's Long Jump, 6.89m/22-7.25 (old record: 6.56m/21-6.50, Esmerelda Garcia, 1981)

Eleanor Roosevelt High School (Lockhart, Scott, Rivers, Johnson) - Girls' 4x1,600m relay, 21:01.91 (old record: 21:11.17, Episcopal (Fla.), 2005)

Elite 2008 - Men's Shuttle Hurdle Relay, 54.10 (old record: 56.05, Clemson, 2000)

* - tied records