No. 4/7 T&F Set For Mississippi Open On Saturday
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 | Track and Field
The No. 4 (men)/7 (women) University of Florida track team will be in Oxford, Miss., on Saturday to take part in the one-day Mississippi Open at the Ole Miss Track & Field Complex.
The action will get underway at 1 p.m. ET with the women's javelin, as sophomore regional-qualifiers Evelien Dekkers (Etten-Leur, The Netherlands) and Star Sansone (Boca Raton, Fla.) will be the first Gators to compete. Junior Adam Montague (Townsville, Australia), who moved into second place on UF's all-time javelin list last weekend at the Drake Relays, will lead a quartet of Gators into the men's competition at the conclusion of the women's event.
Sophomore Mariam Kevkhishvili (Tbilisi, Georgia) will headline the women's shot put competition at 4:10 p.m. ET, as she currently stands as the NCAA leader with a top mark of 17.60m/57-9, while senior Wes Stockbarger (Port Charlotte, Fla.) is slated to take part in the men's discus at the same time. The men's pole vault is scheduled for the early evening and will have a strong Orange and Blue presence, as five Gators are entered in the event. Redshirt freshman Eric Foran (Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.), currently ranked 14th in the nation, junior Justin Semeyn (Tampa, Fla.) and sophomore Mike Morrison (Chesapeake, Va.) have already punched their NCAA Regional tickets in the event, and will look to improve their top marks on Saturday.
Florida will also get into the running-events mix just after 4 p.m. ET with the running of the men's 4x100, an event in which the Gators currently rank sixth in the nation and second in the east region. Juniors Kallinka Pitt (Largo, Fla.) and Dennis Martin (Anderson, S.C.) will lead a quintet of UF athletes in the 110m hurdles after finishing fifth and sixth, respectively, at last week's Penn Relays, while senior Lakecia Ealey (Albany, Ga.) will compete in the women's 100m/200m double during the evening.
UF is coming off of a productive weekend in which the squad split for action at both the Penn and Drake Relays. Senior Lindsay Sundell (Ft. Salonga, N.Y.) opened the action on Thursday night with a victory in the women's steeplechase in Philadelphia, and the quartet of Martin, Pitt, senior Joe Taylor (West Palm Beach, Fla.) and freshman Jarius Cooper (Palm Coast, Fla.) matched that result the following day in the men's shuttle hurdle relay. Montague's career-best toss of 80.20m/263-1 in the men's javelin was the Gators' highlight of the weekend at the Drake Relays, as nasty weather conditions made competition difficult for the Florida throws specialists.
Live results from Oxford will be available via www.GatorZone.com.
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