Florida Gators
NCAA Championships
4x400m Clocks Season-Best Time To Advance To Finals At NCAA Championships
Friday, June 8, 2007 | Men's Track and Field
The 4x400m clocked its fastest time of the season to advance to finals and lead the University of Florida men's track and field team on the second day of action on Thursday at the NCAA Outdoor Championships at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex.
The 4x400m of freshman Carlos Phillips (Winter Park, Fla.), freshman All-American Calvin Smith (Lutz, Fla.), junior All-American Bernard Middleton (Jacksonville, Fla.) and junior Eric Alberter (Benton, Ill.) took third in their heat in a season-best 3:04.92 to advance to Saturday's final.
Other Gators who competed on Friday included sophomore All-American Willie Perry (Lenoir, N.C.), who finished 13th in the 200m (20.81), junior All-American Wes Stockbarger (Port Charlotte, Fla.), who was 14th in the shot put (18.10m/59-4.75) and freshman Mike Morrison (Chesapeake, Va.), who was 24th in the decathlon.
“Other than the injury to Willie Perry in the 200m, there wasn't anything for us to get too down about,” Florida men's coach Mike Holloway said. “I'm very proud of the 4x400m for making the final. Nobody except us thought we could do that. Mike Morrison just had a rough meet and that happens and Wes wasn't on top of his game today. But we've got Calvin in the 400m, Wes in the discus and the 4x400m left. If we keep battling away, we'll do fine.”
Perry took 13th overall in the 200m after coming within two tenths of a second from advancing to Saturday's final. In the semifinals, Perry clocked a time of 20.81 to take sixth in his heat and 13th overall. He was in a good position to secure a berth into finals until strained hamstring caught up with him in the final stages of the race. His time in the semifinals came on the heels of a prelim performance in which Perry won his heat with the third-fastest time overall (20.84).
Stockbarger came up 6.25 inches shy in his bid to advance to finals in both the shot put and the discus as he took 14th overall in the shot put prelims. Stockbarger's best toss came on his third attempt as he recorded a mark of 18.10m/59-4.75. Only 12 athletes advanced to Saturday's final with the final qualifying mark coming in at 18.26m/59-11. Stockbarger still has a chance to become just the third athlete in Florida history to earn multiple All-America honors in the discus entering Friday's 8:15 p.m. (ET) final. In Wednesday's prelim, Stockbarger posted the top mark of any athlete in when he tied his own school record (61.39m/201-5).
Morrison was one of four freshmen competing in the decathlon where he finished 24th after the completion of the 10 events. Morrison entered the day in 23rd place, but a no-height in the pole vault knocked him down to 24th with a total of 6,226 points. In the opening event of the day, Morrison clocked a time of 15.31 in the 110m hurdles to claim 812 points with a 14th-place finish in the event. The time moved him up a spot in the standings to 22nd with 4,373 points. Morrison set a PR in the discus with a mark of 35.98m/118-0 to score 583 points, but he dropped two spots to 24th with 4,956 points. Morrison then entered the pole vault competition at 4.80m/15-9, but he couldn't negotiate the heat on each of his three attempts as he fell to 25th. He rebounded with a PR in the javelin as he posted a throw of 55.07m/180-8 on his first attempt – just 13 inches shy of cracking the all-time Florida top 10. In the final event, Morrison set another PR with a time of 4:52.11 to take 21st in the event.
Through only three of 21 scored events, Wisconsin leads the race for the men's title with 12 points. The Gators will have a chance to put points on the board when Stockbarger competes in the discus on Friday. Smith will compete in the 400m semifinals Friday with the final set for Saturday. The 4x400m will also compete in finals on Saturday.
The NCAA Championships continue through Saturday. The meet will be carried live on CSTV on Friday from 8:30-11:30 p.m. (ET) on CSTV and live on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. (ET) on CBS. Live results can be found at www.ncaasports.com.
Men's Athletes Advancing (5 athletes, 3 events):
Calvin Smith – 400m Semifinal
Wes Stockbarger – Discus Final
Carlos Phillips, Calvin Smith, Bernard Middleton, Eric Alberter – 4x400m Final
