With just five events left on 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 No. 11 Arkansas following Terrell Wilks’ win in the 100-meter dash and earlier victories in the triple jump and 4x100-meter relay. Meanwhile, the unranked women’s squad clung to a 96-95 advantage over top-ranked LSU.
But instead of closing strong in Athens, Ga., both Florida teams inexplicably collapsed down the stretch to disappointing second-place finishes.
“I never thought we were in a bad place at any point in time over the weekend,” UF coach Mike Holloway said. “The bottom line is we weren’t the best team there this weekend. We had some adversity and we couldn’t overcome it, they had some and they overcame it so kudos to Arkansas and coach [Chris] Bucknam.”
The Razorbacks reeled off two wins in the final five races to pull off a 45-point swing, taking the title by a final margin of 157.50 to 140.
Holloway pointed to sprinter Jeff Demps’ false start disqualification in the 100m preliminaries and an injury to distance runner Dumisane Hlaselo, as major potential points lost for the Gators.
Both runners won events at the SEC Indoor Championships in February.
“Not having Dumi in any event hurts us,” Holloway said. “He’s one of the elite runners in the country and not having him, Omar Craddock being hurt and Jeff false starting, there’s a lot of things that came into play. But we’re not going to make excuses about that.”
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 the day, Florida’s men’s squad positioned itself 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.
“We went into that meet knowing that we could do the things that we did this weekend,” Holloway said. “Again, nobody on this coaching staff walked away saying, ‘Wow, I can’t believe we did that.’ We expected those girls to compete that way and that’s why they’re at the University of Florida.”
Both the men’s and women’s teams were buoyed over the first three days of competition with individual championships. On Friday, junior Gray Horn took home his third consecutive SEC decathlon title, which was followed the next day with wins from Claye in the long jump and Genevieve LaCaze in the women’s steeplechase.
The Gators were going for their second men’s SEC Championship this season after winning the indoor meet in February, while the women’s team was aiming at its second outdoor title in three years.
Gators track and field coach Mike Holloway said after Thursday’s competition at the NCAA Outdoor Championships that he was impressed with senior Jeremy Postin’s performance in the men’s hammer throw. Postin finished third with a final distance of 68.29m.
