The LSU Alumni Gold Meet featured two of the three best 4x100-meter relay teams in the country: No. 1 LSU (38.41) and No. 3 Florida (38.69). The Gators relay consists of juniors Grant Holloway and Raymond Ekevwo, sophomore Hakim Sani Brown and senior Ryan Clark.
It was the most anticipated race of the meet. It seems that both relay teams prefer to be away from home, as UF corrected its handoff woes from Florida Relays nearly three weeks ago, while the Tigers had a slightly off day on Saturday in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
LSU escaped the weekend still holding the nation’s best time. UF shrunk that gap, but did not completely close it, as Florida shaved off fourteen milliseconds of time to clock in at 38.55 seconds. The Tigers finished their lap in 38.82 seconds.
LSU might still be the best 4x100 team on paper, but the momentum shifted this weekend. That shift is crucial this time of year, as there is essentially no break from now until NCAAs.
The 4x100 is the only relay that requires large amounts of practice time to get handoffs totally down. The Gators hitting their handoff stride while LSU struggled is ideal for Florida ahead of what should be a tight finish at NCAAs between the two schools and No. 2 Houston.
Holloway is the best overall track athlete in the country by a decent margin. On Saturday, he went straight from the relay to the long jump and won the event on only his second jump. His score of eight meters puts him easily in NCAAs, so he decided to forgo all of his jump attempts after and no one at the meet topped that jump.
The men’s team currently sits at No. 3 overall, while the women sit at No. 7. The men are a deeper team all around, and the women mostly rely on their jumpers and a slew of distance runners.
Senior Yanis David came in second in the long jump for the women at 6.40 meters, electing to not use her final three jumps, since she is already No. 4 in the country in that event.
Her teammate, Kala Penn, sits a spot behind her nationally. The only short-middle distance runner expected to take home anything significant in June on the women’s side is senior Sharrika Barnett, whose 400-meter time of 50.96 is the fastest in the nation by almost a full second.
Saturday only showed so much about where both the UF men’s and women’s teams stand, since most of the top performers besides the 4x100 men’s team either did not compete in their best events at all or hung it up early, like Holloway and David.
Follow Graham Marsh on Twitter gmarsh@alligator.org and contact him at @GrahamMarshUF.
The Gators 4x100-meter relay team, consisting of juniors Grant Holloway (pictured) and Raymond Ekevwo, sophomore Hakim Sani Brown and senior Ryan Clark, clocked a time of 38.55 at the LSU Alumni Gold meet.
