The Florida track and field team kicked off the indoor season with strong showings at two meets this weekend.
While a majority of the team traveled to Texas Tech to compete at the Corky Classic, the distance squad stayed in Gainesville to race at the Jimmy Carnes College Meet.
Redshirt senior Jenoah McKiver provided the highlight of the weekend. Racing the rarely-run 600-yard distance in Lubbock, the two-time All-American crossed the line in 1:05.75. He not only took over a second-and-a-half off the previous collegiate record, but his time is over a second faster than anyone in world history has ever run 600 yards.
It will go down in the record books as a “world best” as opposed to a world record because it is not a commonly contested distance, but it is still a good sign of things to come for McKiver. Baylor senior hurdler Nathaniel Ezekiel set the previous collegiate record at this meet last January before going on to have one of the fastest 400m-hurdles seasons in NCAA history.
McKiver’s day was not over after his historic performance, though, as he later anchored the Gators 4x400m relay team in a win over Arizona State and Texas A&M with a collegiate-leading time of 3:02.80.
UF Wanya McCoy and redshirt senior Malcolm Clemons had impressive returns to collegiate competition after competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
McCoy, a junior from the Bahamas, dominated the 60m dash on Friday night, winning his heat in each of the three rounds of competition. His 6.53-second clocking in the semi-final ties him with Pjai Austin and Raymond Ekevwo as the third-fastest man in program history. He equaled the Division I-leading time established earlier in the day by USC’s Max Thomas.
Clemons got his fifth indoor season as a Gator underway with a best mark of 7.72m in the men’s long jump competition. While he only managed a runner-up finish, he was 20cm clear of the next closest collegiate competitor.
John Luke Witte and Jacob Lemmon provided big performances in the field in their Gator debuts. Witte, a Gainesville native who returned home after four years at LSU, etched his name into the record books early with a performance of 21.78 meters in the weight throw, which is the third-best mark in program history. Lemmon, a three-time All-American during his time at the University of Virginia, opened up his Florida career with the sixth-best mark in UF history, 21.30 meters.
Freshman Skyye Lee and junior Demaris Waters each made the final of the women’s and men’s 60m-hurdles, respectively. A two-time Missouri State Champion last spring, Lee finished seventh in her Florida debut with a time of 8.44 seconds, while Waters, a San Jose State transfer, finished sixth with 8.27.
A 400m-hurdles specialist outdoors, junior Gabrielle Matthews made a statement in her UF debut with a third-place finish in the 60m dash, crossing the line in 7.28 seconds. That time currently puts the former Ole Miss Rebel just outside of the 10 fastest women in the NCAA this year.
While most of the Gators’ distance contingent was competing in Gainesville, sophomore Edward Kepran, freshman Jonah Kirspel and sophomore Miguel Pantojas traveled west to race the 1000m and were rewarded with second-, third- and fourth-place finishes.
Other notable results from Texas included a sixth-place finish in the women’s long jump by freshman Alyssa Banales (6.16 meters), a fourth-place finish in the women’s shot put by sophomore Gracelyn Leiseth (15.93 meters), a runner-up finish behind McKiver in the men’s 600-yard race by senior Sam Austin (1:08.69) and a third-place finish in the men’s 200m dash by freshman Jaden Wiley.
At the Alachua County Sports and Events Center in Celebration Pointe, Beth Morley led the way for Florida’s distance athletes. In the first race of the day, the British junior ran the 10th-fastest women’s 1,000m in collegiate history, completing five laps of the track in 2:41.20. En route to her fast finish, she had to hold off FSU redshirt sophomore Suus Altorf, an NCAA qualifier in the outdoor 1500m last spring with 4:10 credentials.
“I didn’t really know how close she was to me, so I kind of just kept it going and went for it,” Morley said after the race. “I felt like I had quite a bit left for the last two laps.”
Morley said she plans to primarily race the mile indoors, and Gators distance coach Will Palmer sees a race like this as a good mark of what her potential could be in the longer distance as the season progresses.
“The target is to get her qualified for NCAAs in the mile,” Palmer said. “This tells me she’s definitely got the ability to do that. The 1K’s a little hard because we don’t run it that much, it’s kind of an awkward event and an off-distance, but it told me she’s ahead of where we thought she was.”
This meet served as the track debut for a handful of new distance transfers, including Morley, and freshmen. Graham Myers, a freshman and five-time FHSAA medalist during his time at Fleming Island High School, finished third in the men’s mile with a time of 4:08.50, and was followed by a trio of teammates in sixth, seventh and eighth.
Junior Tia Wilson, who helped pace Morley’s 1,000m effort earlier in the day, took home a runner-up finish in 2:11.56 for her first 800m race since 2018.
Gabby Schmidt, a freshman from Australia who was competing unattached on Friday, finished second in the women’s 3,000m in 9:29.67.
Next up for the Gators is a trip to Arkansas for the Razorback Invitational, taking place on Jan. 31 and Feb. 1.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at paulhofmahoney@ufl.edu. Follow him on X at @phofmahoney
