For
the second consecutive year, the Gators watched an NCAA Outdoor
Championship narrowly slip away.
No.
2 Florida finished third in the final standings of the four-day
meet, just two points behind NCAA National Champion Texas A&M
and one behind runner-up Florida State. The Aggies edged the Gators
by a single point in 2010 and two points in 2009, winning the last
three outdoor championships.
“We
just had too many things go wrong for us to be the champions,” UF
coach Mike Holloway said. “It’s another two-point loss, and I’m
almost at a loss for words. I am the guy in charge of the program
and I need to look at myself first. I need to figure out what we
have to do to quit coming up short like this. I am proud of our
team, but we didn’t perform like the champions that I know we
are.”
Heading into the last event in Des Moines, Iowa, Florida needed to
finish at least fifth in the 4x400-meter relay — and prevent
top-ranked Texas A&M from winning — to take home UF’s first
outdoor title.
But
the Aggies exploded out of the gates to easily win the relay by
nearly five seconds over the Gators’ sixth-place squad of Christian
Taylor, Jovon Toppin, Sean Obinwa and Tony McQuay.
Taylor ran the first leg of the relay just minutes after an epic
1-2 finish in the triple jump with fellow junior Will Claye. The
pair traded off breaking the school record until Taylor’s
wind-aided leap of 17.80m/58-4.75 (+2.3) went down as the longest
collegiate jump of all-time in any condition.
Earlier on the final day of competition, Florida also squandered a
chance at major points in the 4x100-meter relay when senior Terrell
Wilks and junior Jeff Demps fumbled the baton exchange.
Texas A&M took second and eight points in the event, while UF
was tagged with a DNF.
The
mistake capped off a nightmare meet for Demps, who was unable to
qualify for Friday’s finals of the 100-meter dash after he was
stricken with a leg cramp mid-stride.
The
Gators were going for a season-sweep of the NCAA Track and Field
Championships after winning February’s indoor meet for the second
consecutive year.
The
No. 17 women’s team also fell short of its expectations with a
34th-place finish overall.
After scoring in just two events, Florida’s lone bright spot came
from distance runner Genevieve LaCaze, who broke her own school
record in the steeplechase for the third consecutive meet.
With a clocked time of 9:59.44, the junior’s final steeplechase of
the season was over 25 seconds faster than her top effort heading
into the 2011 season.
Although Holloway was deeply disappointed with the results, he did
have an optimistic outlook on the future.
“We
have a lot of good people coming back on both sides,” Holloway
said. “We’re really excited about both our men and women. The
bottom line is, it’s just a tough pill to swallow right now.”
