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With just five events left in the final day of the 2011
Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships, the Gators were
primed for a clean sweep.
The
No. 2 men’s team held a 28-point lead over Arkansas following
Terrell Wilks’ win in the 100-meter dash and earlier victories in
the triple jump and 4x100 relay. The unranked women’s squad clung
to a 96-95 advantage over LSU.
But
instead of closing strong in Athens, Ga., both Florida teams
inexplicably collapsed to disappointing second place finishes.
“Obviously, we didn’t come here to be second, but there’s no way I
walk away with a bad feeling today,” Holloway said. “There were
just so many good things that happened. We’re just going to use
this as motivation. We’re going to see a lot of these same teams at
the NCAA meet and we’ll work hard to make sure the outcome is
different.”
The
Razorbacks reeled off two wins down the stretch, including sweeping
the top-three in the 800-meter run, to pull off a 45-point swing to
take the title. Arkansas trumped UF by a margin of 157.50-140.
On
the women’s side, the Tigers coasted past the Gators by 30 points –
needing only a 200-meter dash victory - as Florida failed to place
in the top-three for the rest of the tournament.
Earlier in day, the Gators’ men’s squad positioned themselves at
the top of the leaderboard with two meet records. Junior Will Claye
captured the triple jump with a leap of 17.24m/56-6.75 (+2.2), and
the 4x100 relay team sprinted to a blazing time of 38.53
seconds.
“I
just went out there and did what we always do,” Claye said. “I felt
good this morning when I woke up, and I was just really pumped all
day. It’s just like practice out there...We’re ready to go back
home, get a bit of training in and we’ll be ready for regionals and
nationals.”
The
women’s lone victory of the day came from freshman Fawn Miller in
the javelin. Her personal-best throw of 51.46m/168-10 sealed the
fourth consecutive SEC title for Florida in the event.
Both the men’s and women’s teams were buoyed over the first three
days of competition by three other individual championships. On
Friday, junior Gray Horn took home his third consecutive SEC
decathlon championship, which was followed the next day by wins
from Claye in the long jump and Genevieve LaCaze in the
steeplechase.
The
Gators were going for their second men’s SEC Championship this
season after winning the indoor meet in February and their second
outdoor title in three years for the women’s team.
