The first day of NCAA Indoor Championship wrapped up on a bittersweet note for the Gators.
After a UF record-breaking performance last weekend, the women’s distance medley relay team came up short Friday night in Boise, Idaho.
On the first day’s final event, junior Agata Strausa got the relay off to a great start for the Gators by creating a gap between her and the rest of the pack. Alishea Usery was able to build on the lead Strausa started and break away from the field in the second leg of the race, giving sophomore Shelby Hayes a huge advantage when she handed off the baton.
However, Hayes fell behind, forcing Cory McGee to make up lost time. Despite McGee staying steps behind the leader during a majority of the final leg, she eventually dropped to fifth place during the final lap.
“I’m proud of the women’s DMR for being All-Americans and finishing fifth overall,” coach Mike Holloway said. “I know they wanted to run better and they didn’t run quite as fast, but it was a tactical race and it went well.”
Although the finish was heartbreaking for the women, Florida still has much to look forward to during the remainder of its time in Idaho.
Besides the women’s DMR team, the Gators were able to put points on the board in two other events. Marquis Dendy came in 8th for a point in the long jump, and Kemal Mesic finished 3rd in shot point to add six points to the men’s score.
“I thought we had a great day,” Holloway said. “Our goal coming in was to qualify everybody and we qualified all but one of the men and all but one of the women. Overall, we had a phenomenal day.”
The Gators qualified for 22 slots in the NCAA Championship. In the track preliminaries on Friday, nine Gators competed. Seven of the nine were able to advance to the finals today after McGee and Hugh Graham, Jr. just missed the cut off for the mile and 400m, respectively.
Junior sprinters Jeff Demps and Tony McQuay were perhaps the most impressive performers Friday, both advancing to the finals in each athlete’s respective event.
Demps set a new school record and a personal-best mark of 6.52 seconds in the 60m preliminaries, the best mark in the NCAA this season.
McQuay also recorded a national-best time, finishing the 400m preliminary in 45.85 seconds.
After day one, the men’s team sits in 14th place and the women’s team is tied for 23rd.
“Tomorrow is our big day,” Holloway said. “Each and every one of our athletes will show up tomorrow and do work.”
