Gator Country

Florida junior athlete Gray Horn / Gator Country file photo by Casey Brooke Lawson

AZUSA, Calif. — Junior Florida multi-event athlete Gray Horn (Waynesfield, Ohio) recorded a personal-best score of 7,791 to win the decathlon at the Mt. Sac Relays Multi-Events, completed Thursday evening at Cougar Athletic Stadium on the campus of Azusa Pacific University.

Horn totaled a personal-best score of 7,791, shattering his previous personal-best decathlon score of 7,652, charted at the 2010 Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships in Knoxville, Tenn. Horn’s score goes down as the second-best decathlon score in program history. He comes up just short of the UF school record of 7,803 points set by Mike Morrison en route to winning the 2008 Mt. Sac Relays decathlon. Horn becomes the first Gator to win the Mt. Sac Relays decathlon since Morrison claimed that event in 2008.

Horn posted a 21-point victory over second-place Lars Rise, of Missouri. Rise, the defending Mt. Sac Relays decathlon champion, totaled 7,720. Fourth-place David Kelch, of Oregon, was the third-highest finishing collegian in the field with 7,533 points.

In capturing the event, Horn joins an elite group of athletes who have previously won the Mt. Sac Relays decathlon, including Olympic medalists Bryan Clay and Dave Johnson.

Horn opened the day with a third-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles, using a personal-best time of 14.41 (+1.7) in that event. He then recorded a 10th-place finish in the discus with a toss of 37.66m/123-7, which was close to his personal-best mark in that event.

Horn leaped 4.80m/15-9 in the men’s pole vault competition before charting a personal-best mark of 52.63m/172-8 in the javelin competition. That surpassed his previous personal-best mark in the javelin of 49.29m/161-8, recorded at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore.

Horn capped off the day with a fifth-place finish in the 1,500-meter run, using a time of 4:37.69.

Florida returns to action on Saturday when it plays host to the Tom Jones Memorial Classic, beginning at 12 p.m. ET at James G. Pressly Stadium at Percy Beard Track. Admission is free and open to the public. 

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