With two days left of qualifying at the NCAA East Preliminary
Rounds in Bloomington, Ind.,
five Gators have already sealed their spots for the NCAA
finals.
Ten
other track and field athletes also advanced to the quarterfinals
in their running events and will look to punch their ticket to the
finals on Friday and Saturday.
The
No. 2 men’s team took the lion’s share of the eligible marks with
Will Claye (long jump), Christian Taylor (long jump), Frankie
Hammond (high jump) and Stipe Zunic (javelin) all raking in top-12
performances.
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“I am very, very proud of everybody, and their effort and focus
today,” UF coach Mike Holloway said. “We talked about this being
the first round of the NCAA meet and how we couldn’t treat this as
if it were just another competition. We had to take this seriously
and match the focus and the intensity of the other teams and the
other athletes here. I thought we did a great job of that
today.”
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Claye, who was named the Southeastern
Conference Men’s Athlete of the Year on Tuesday, tied for
second in the long jump with a mark of 7.83m/25-8.25 (+0.3), while
junior Christian Taylor finished in fourth with a
leap of 7.77m/25-6.
For
the No. 19 women’s team, senior Daisy Glasser also qualified for
the NCAA Championships in Des Moines, Iowa after she tied for first
in the pole vault with a leap of
"color: #222222;">4.00m/13-1.50.
UF Communications contributed to this report.
