The University of Florida track and field teams, coming off highly successful 2010 campaigns that saw them earn four top-four NCAA finishes, open their 2011 seasons this Saturday when the Gators travel to University Park, Pa., to participate in the one-day Nittany Lion Challenge, hosted by Penn State University at its Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track.
Field events begin at 11 a.m. ET on Saturday with the running events commencing at 12 p.m. ET. Live results or the meet can be found online at www.GoPSUSports.com. The Nittany Lion Challenge features five teams from the east coast in Albany, Cornell, Florida, Maryland and host Penn State.
The Florida men begin the 2011 season ranked No. 1 in the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association preseason poll. The Gator women enter this season unranked after losing to graduation 32 of the team’s 33 points from last season’s fourth-place NCAA Indoor Finish.
“We’re looking forward to putting the uniform on and competing against somebody other than ourselves this weekend,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “Our biggest focus this weekend is to go out and get the season off to a good start. We want to see how everybody reacts when the lights come on. We have a very talented freshman class and we want to see how they respond to collegiate competition. We had a great fall. Everybody was very focused and very determined, and I think the biggest thing is that there’s a lot of excitement about what we have the potential of doing this year.”
On the men’s side, the Gators are the returning NCAA Indoor Champion, claiming their first national title in program history by scoring 57 total team points to defeat second-place Oregon and Texas A&M at Fayetteville, Ark. The Florida women are coming off a fourth-place finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships in 2010, which marked the team’s highest indoor finish since the 2005 campaign.
Holloway, the 2010 USTFCCCA National Men’s Indoor Head Coach of the Year, begins his fourth season as UF’s combined men’s and women’s head coach and his ninth as head coach of the men’s program.
