Gator Country

Gators junior thrower Jeremy Postin, pictured above at an indoor meet in Gainesville earlier this season, won the men's hammer title at the Texas Relays on Thursday with his second-best throw of his career. / Gator Country file photo by Tim Casey

The second day of competition at the 85th Annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays proved to be a great day for the Gators, as five members of the Orange and Blue competed on Thursday.

Junior thrower Jeremy Postin (Auburndale, Fla.) took home the men’s hammer title, throwing the second-furthest mark of his career with a toss of 66.21m/217-2. Postin is the current school record-holder in the men’s hammer throw and will look to improve upon his mark of 66.69m/218-9 from last year’s SEC Championships as the season progresses.

“Winning the hammer throw at Texas Relays is certainly a step in the right direction,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “Jeremy had a strong indoor season this year and his improvement has shown throughout his training so far this year.”

Sophomore multi-event athlete Brittany Harrell (McComb, Miss.) also had a stellar performance on Thursday, continuing the momentum she set in the first four events of the heptathlon on Wednesday. Harrell finished second overall with an NCAA automatic qualifying mark of 5,608 points, a personal best for Harrell and improving upon her current place in the Florida record books at second all-time.

“Brittany’s performance at Texas Relays is an extension of the fantastic indoor season she had,” Holloway said. “Our goal was for her to come in here and automatically qualify for NCAAs and she did that. Now we can get back to Gainesville and get focused on hard training to prepare her for the conference and national meets.”

Harrell began the day with the long jump, leaping a career-best 5.88m/19-3.50 in the heptathlon long jump, finishing third and scoring 813 points. The Gator sophomore then took on the javelin throw, where she finished third with a throw of 38.93m/127-9 to score 647 points.

The Mississippi native had the 800 meters race left, an event where she would have to run no slower than 2:27.00 to automatically qualify for the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Harrell finished fifth in her heat and seventh overall in the event with a time of 2:18.85, a personal best, scoring 839 points. Overall, Harrell earned five personal bests (four all-time, one outdoor) out of the seven heptathlon events at the Texas Relays.

The trio of Amani Bryant (Tampa, Fla.), Ugonna Ndu (Newark, N.J.) and Ashley Usery (St. Louis, Mo.) competed in the preliminary rounds of the women’s 400 meter hurdles. Ndu advanced to Saturday afternoon’s final with a time of 59.17, good for sixth overall. Bryant finished 13th with a time of 1:00.25, just .23 off her personal best. Usery turned in the second-fastest performance of her career with a time of 1:00.66 to finish right behind Bryant at 14th overall.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the ladies in the 400 meter hurdles,” Holloway said. “Ugonna ran a great race and we look forward to her race on Saturday. For Amani and Ashley, they both ran right near their personal bests and to do that in just the second weekend outdoors means great things as the season progresses.

The Gators continue competition Friday morning, as the women’s 4x100 meter relay preliminaries and the women’s javelin starts off the day on Friday for the Orange and Blue.

Heat sheets for Friday, as well as final results from Thursday can be found on GatorZone.com at the conclusion of this evening’s competition.

Friday’s events from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. ET will be live on the Longhorn Network with additional coverage from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. ET and 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. ET. Fans can follow live results from the Texas Relays by clicking here.

Courtesy of UF Communications

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