Amid startlists full of NAIA and NJCAA athletes from across the Southeast for Friday’s Visit Gainesville Indoor Classic, three names stood out: Imani Washington, John Luke Witte and Alida van Daalen.
It wasn’t the kind of meet the Florida trio would usually throw at, but they made the most of the convenient opportunity to compete, with each athlete collecting an event victory and a season’s best.
“This meet is pretty low-key, in our backyard,” said Florida assistant throws coach Eric Werskey. “It’s always good to come here and focus on some things that we’re seeing in training and to have that relaxed atmosphere.”
Werskey said he made the decision to compete at this meet immediately after the team’s last meet in Arkansas on Jan. 30 and 31, and he saw exactly what he wanted to see out of all three of his athletes.
Washington got the competition rolling in the women’s weight throw, which the senior won with a mark of 20.23 meters. This mark is the second-best of Washington’s career and the first time she’s broken the 20-meter barrier this season.
“She competes really well,” Werskey said. “She has such a big emotional flip from training to here, so having her compete helps her work out some of those nerves and technical things.”
On her final three throws, Washington implemented an overhead wind at the back of the circle, as opposed to starting with the weight on her hip at the beginning of the throw. One of her warmup attempts with the wind was the “deepest throw for her today,” according to Werskey, but she wasn’t able to control the additional force that comes with the wind on a legal throw.
“We’re close,” Werskey said. “We’re starting to see some really cool things show themselves a little bit, so in theory it should come out here in the next couple competitions.”
Washington finished ninth at the SEC Indoor Championships last February, just 33 centimeters out of a scoring position. If her new approach can prove fruitful in the coming weeks, it’s likely she’ll manage to break onto the scoring table for the Gators.
Witte produced the four best marks of his season in the men’s weight throw, with the farthest toss landing at 21.79 meters. There are still three weeks left in the regular season, but the graduate student momentarily moved himself into the final qualifying spot for next month’s national championships.
“It was a really big step in the right direction,” Werskey said. “Every week, we’ve seen 22-plus at training, and then at meets it’s just like shortening and things like that… It gave him a lot of confidence to see that in a short amount of time, he’s still gonna make it fire.”
Standing in juxtaposition to Washington’s technical change today, Witte reverted back to a more static start in the back of the circle. With the weight at rest next to his left hip at the beginning of the throw instead of being in motion before he began moving his feet, he threw down one of the best series of his career.
Van Daalen served as the closer for the afternoon’s proceedings, and the Dutch redshirt junior delivered. Last week’s meet in Arkansas was her first indoor competition since 2024, as a torn labrum kept her out of action last winter. Her mark was solid, finishing fourth at 17.10 meters, but not quite to the standard of an Olympian. She instantly blew past that mark this time out, launching her first attempt 17.96 meters.
“It felt a little bit closer to connection through the shot than what I had last week,” van Daalen said. “Last week it felt like I was fighting for it, this time I actually let my body work for it and make it flow into it.”
The throw is van Daalen’s best since May 23, 2024, and slots in as the fifth-best mark in the NCAA to this point in the season. She wasn’t able to improve upon it over her last five attempts – potentially due to getting “a little greedy,” she admits – but the mark still represents a huge step forward, especially considering her current cycle in the weight room.
“She lifted yesterday for the third time this week, so she’s not fresh,” Werskey said. “So whenever Coach Matt [DeLancey, the Gators’ strength and conditioning coach] peels the weights back… I feel like we’re on pace to do some special things.”
Florida will next be in action on Feb. 13 and 14. A majority of the team will head back to Arkansas for the Tyson Invitational, while a cohort of distance runners will travel to Boston for the David Hemery Valentine Invite.
Contact Paul Hof-Mahoney at phof-mahoney@alligator.org and follow him on X at @phofmahoney.
Paul is a senior in his fourth semester on the track and field/cross country beat for The Alligator. In his free time, you can increasingly see him jogging around Gainesville or endlessly falling deeper down the rabbit hole that is track Twitter.
