Florida Gators
Snowbird Invitational
T&F Collects Six More Wins, Five More Regional Marks In Tallahassee
Saturday, March 22, 2008 | Track and Field
The University of Florida track & field team posted a half-dozen event wins and piled up five NCAA regional-qualifying marks on the final day of the Snowbird Invitational at the Mike Long Track & Field Complex, finishing with 11 victories and nine regional standards on the opening weekend of the outdoor season.
“We did a good job today of finishing a productive opening weekend of outdoor competition,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “We put up a decent amount of regional marks this weekend, which is the main thing you're looking for out of meets at this stage of the season. The big key this weekend was to get our feet wet outside, and get some people who didn't make indoor nationals back into competition.”
Making his Gator debut on Saturday, junior Adam Montague (Townsville, Australia) wasted no time in inserting his name into the UF record books, launching a throw of 71.57m/234-10 to move into third place on the all-time school chart. The performance also qualified Montague for a return trip to Tallahassee in May for the NCAA East Regional, which he won last year in Gainesville with a mark of 73.86m/242-4. Freshman Doug Nelson (Tampa, Fla.), making his first appearance in the orange and blue after redshirting the 2007 season, also punched his regional ticket on the final day of the Snowbird Invitational, finishing second behind only Montague with a heave of 63.34m/207-10 that ranks as the sixth-best in school history.
UF also qualified a pair of athletes for regional competition in the 110m hurdles on Saturday, as freshman Jarius Cooper (Palm Coast, Fla.) turned in a stylish collegiate debut as the top collegian in the event with a time of 13.98 and junior Kallinka Pitt (Largo, Fla.) clocked in just a shade afterwards with a mark of 13.99. Cooper's effort was just .05 shy of cracking Florida's all-time top-10 list, while Pitt's time represented a personal best by more than three tenths of a second and qualified him for the regional meet for the second year in a row.
“I'm very pleased with the way our hurdlers competed today,” Holloway said. “I can't remember working with a freshman who opened his collegiate career under 14 seconds, so I'm very impressed with Jarius Cooper right now, and to see Kallinka Pitt run such a large PR was another positive of the opening weekend.”
Junior Justin Semeyn (Tampa, Fla.) picked up his second-career victory in the men's pole vault on Saturday, clearing a top height of 4.90m/16-0.75 to finish second in the field and tops among collegians. Classmate Beau Burroughs (Tampa, Fla.) narrowly missed an NCAA regional mark for the second time in as many days on Saturday, as his toss of 16.79m/55-1 fell only a centimeter shy of the distance required for entrance into the meet. The effort did, however, place Burroughs atop the collegiate field, and fourth overall, to mark the first outdoor win of his UF career.
Midway through the afternoon, freshman Keely Medeiros (Blumenau-SC, Brazil) became the fifth UF woman to earn an NCAA regional-qualifying mark at the Snowbird Invitational, tossing the shot put 14.60m/47-11 to finish second and eclipse the regional standard by 30 centimeters. In the first outdoor meet of her collegiate career, freshman Daisy Glasser (Atlantic Beach, Fla.) finished second overall, and first among collegians, in the women's pole vault with a mark of 3.70m/12-1.50, while senior Dominique McLeggan (Weston, Fla.) paced the collegiate field in the women's 400m with a time of 55.12 to earn her first individual victory as a Gator.
The Gators will split their squad next weekend as the outdoor slate continues, with a contingent returning to Tallahassee for the Florida State Relays and another group traveling south to compete at the Hurricane Challenge in Miami.
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