With the NCAA East Preliminary in the books, the Gators can now focus on the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon.
Florida added 14 more NCAA Outdoor Championship qualifying performances on the final day, bringing its total entries to 26.
The Gators now have five athletes who qualified for two different events at the NCAA Outdoors.
On the men’s side, freshmen Clayton Brown (high jump, triple jump) and Grant Holloway (110-meter hurdles) secured berths in two different events on a rainy, weather-delayed afternoon. Brown is just the fifth man since 2010 to qualify in both the high jump and triple jump.
Holloway qualified in the long jump on Thursday.
For the women, sophomore Yanis David (second) and junior Darrielle McQueen (seventh) both qualified in the triple jump. Both also made the cut in the long jump on day one.
In the men’s triple jump, junior KeAndre Bates joined Brown in punching the ticket to Eugene. Brown took second place, while Bates finished fifth. Bates also qualified for the long jump on Thursday.
In the men’s high jump, Brown (fifth) and sophomore Jhonny Victor (12th) moved on to the NCAA Outdoors.
SEC women’s shot put champion and junior Lloydricia Cameron will be headed to Eugene for the second straight year after finishing fifth yesterday.
Her throw of 17.39 meters was fourth-best in school history.
After a hamstring injury kept her in last place a year ago, senior Kyra Jefferson ran the 200-meter in 22.69 seconds, good for second place and a shot at a national title.
Redshirt junior Skylar Ross-Ransom capped off her final NCAA East Preliminary with a qualifying time of 13.21 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles.
Florida will also be represented in Eugene by the men’s and women’s relay teams.
The combination of Holloway, senior Eric Futch, and sophomores Michael Timpson, Jr. and Ryan Clark finished 10th overall in the men’s 4x100 relays, finishing in 39.35 seconds.
Ross-Ransom and a trio of seniors in Jefferson, Shayla Sanders and Destinee Gause took fourth place in the women’s 4x100 with a time of 43.29 seconds.
In the 4x400 relays, both teams finished sixth as the women posted a mark of 3:31.89, while the men posted a time of 3:04.05.
“We did a lot of good things. Really proud of so many people,” coach Mike Holloway said. “You pick an event … everybody who went out there and competed with a lot of heart, a lot of pride, and a lot of passion. That’s who we are.”
Florida will wrap up the tournament with 17 individual qualifiers across 13 events, in addition to its relay teams.
The Gators did well at the NCAA Outdoors a season ago, with the men’s team winning it all and the women’s team sharing ninth place with USC. The competition will begin on June 7.
Contact Andrew Huang at ahuang@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @AndrewJHuang.
UF sprinter Shayla Sanders runs the 100 meters at the Hurricane Collegiate Invitational on Saturday, March 25, 2017.
