Four Florida track and field athletes and one relay team charted season-best marks/times Saturday at a pair of last-chance meets — the Virginia Tech Qualifier in Blacksburg, Va., and the Alex Wilson Invitational in South Bend, Ind.
“I thought we did a good job this weekend,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “Now we have to play the waiting game to see who makes it into the meet (the NCAA Indoor Championships). The goal for this weekend was to try to get some more scoring opportunities for next weekend and I thought we did that. We need to get back, get rested up and get ready to do it all over again next (this) weekend.”
The NCAA Indoor Championships are March 12 and 13 at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
The Florida women’s 4×400-meter relay team ran its fastest time since the 2005 season and was just out of the school’s all-time top-10 in an NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 3:35.95 at the Alex Wilson Invitational held at Notre Dame. The quartet of Alishea Usery, Danielle Williams, Lanie Whittaker and Ije Iheoma shaved more than two seconds off the previous season-best time of 3:38.08. Senior distance runner Justin Taylor had a personal best and NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 4:03.31 in the men’s mile at Notre Dame. That goes down as the eighth-fastest time in school history.
Junior thrower Keely Medeiros set a new personal-best toss in the women’s shot put, placing third in that event at the Virginia Tech Qualifier with an NCAA provisional-qualifying mark of 55 feet, 2¾ inches, the sixth-best throw in school history. Senior Jeremy Hall ran a season-best time of 6.62 seconds in the final of the men’s 60-meter dash. Junior Terrell Wilks also ran a season-best and NCAA provisional-qualifying time of 6.67.