Junior Florida decathlete Gray Horn (Waynesfield, Ohio) became just the second person in Southeastern Conference history to win three consecutive league decathlon titles. Horn set a school record in the process to lead the Florida track and field team on Friday, the second day of the 2011 SEC Outdoor Championships at Spec Towns Track in Athens, Ga.
Florida set its second school record of the weekend after sophomore thrower Jeremy Postin (Auburndale, Fla.) broke his own school hammer throw record on Thursday. The Gators on Friday also advanced five athletes to the finals of their respective events in a successful second day at the SEC Outdoor Championships.
“I thought we had an incredible day,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “We challenged our team just to execute, to come out and be who we are and do what we do. That’s what we did today. For Gray Horn to win his third decathlon in a row is an incredible accomplishment. To win one of these is great, but to win three in a row is phenomenal, and to set the school record on top of that. I’m really proud of Gray. Brittany Harrell had a 300-point personal best and the No. 2 score in school history in the heptathlon.
“We qualified well across the board,” Holloway said. “I’m really proud of everybody. Even the people who didn’t qualify came out and competed hard. It’s just a testament to the way we do things. We just have to go back to the hotel, rest up and come out tomorrow to do the same thing all over again.”
In very early standings – through three of 21 events on both sides – the Florida men are in third with 23 points, while the Gator women are in fourth with 11 points. Arkansas leads the men’s competition with 26 points, while Georgia is second with 24. On the women’s side, Georgia leads with 29 points, while Arkansas is second with 14 and Ole Miss is third with 12.
Holloway noted the team’s successful start to the SEC Outdoor Championships provided a spark for the remainder of the competitors. It’s something he’s looking to continue through the final two days of the event.
“The thing that you can point to that pulled the trigger on everything was Jeremy Postin,” Holloway said. “He got in the ring on his sixth throw, he was in fourth place and he came up with a two-foot personal-best. Everybody was here to watch that and everybody said, if we all do what Jeremy did, we’re going to be fine. It wasn’t about trying to win or do something special, it was about us being who we are. That’s what Jeremy did and that’s what everybody else has followed with. It’s a testament to this group, how much they care about each other and how much they believe in what we do.”
Horn totaled a Florida school-record score of 7,828 to win his third consecutive SEC decathlon title, becoming just the second person in league history to accomplish that feat. LSU’s Claston Bernard is the only other athlete in SEC history to win three decathlon titles, doing so from 1999-2001. Horn breaks the UF school decathlon record of 7,803, set by Mike Morrison in 2008, becoming just the second person in school history to eclipse the 7,800-point plateau.
Horn opened the day by recording a personal-best time of 14.25 to win the decathlon 110-meter hurdles. That bettered his previous personal-record time of 14.41, charted at the 2011 Mt. Sac Relays. He then charted a personal-best mark of 41.82m/137-2 in the discus to place second in that event. That topped his previous best mark of 39.72m/130-4 recorded at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championships. Horn then placed second in the pole vault with a mark of 4.80m/15-9, before finishing third in the javelin at 51.88m/170-2. He closed out the day with a second-place finish in the 1,500-meter run, clocking a time of 4:37.29.
“I am very thankful for the position that the entire coaching staff has put me in,” Horn said. “They never stop believing in me and I’ve never stopped believing in them. That’s why we’ve had the success that we’ve had. That’s why I’ve won three straight SEC Championships and I’m trying to motivate my team.”
Freshman multi-event athlete Brittany Harrell (McComb, Miss.) posted a third-place finish in the women’s heptathlon with the second-best score in school history (5,452). It was an improvement of more than 300 points from her total of 5,141 at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays back in April. Arkansas’ Makeba Alcide won the event with a total of 5,646 points. Harrell charted a personal-best mark/time in each of her seven events this weekend.
Harrell opened up with a personal-best mark of 5.48m/17-11.75 in the heptathlon long jump to place ninth overall in that event. She then won the javelin with a personal-best mark of 41.62m/136-6. It shattered her previous-best javelin mark of 36.75m/120-7 recorded at the Texas Relays. Harrell closed out the day with a sixth-place finish in the 800-meter run in a personal-record time of 2:20.61.
Freshman distance runner Mark Parrish (Tampa, Fla.) placed third in the men’s 10,000-meter run in a time of 30:26.53 to pick up six points for the Gators, while James Uthmeier (Destin, Fla.) just missed a scoring opportunity, placing ninth in 31:33.61.
Florida had each of its two athletes score in the women’s 10,000-meter run, as Callie Cooper (St. Johns, Fla.) placed sixth and Ali Crabb (St. Petersburg, Fla.) was seventh. Cooper clocked a time of 35:42.57, which ranked just outside of Florida’s all-time top-10 list, while Crabb finished in 36:23.62.
Sophomore middle distance runner Sean Obinwa (Tampa, Fla.) won his heat and finished second overall in the preliminaries of the men’s 800-meter run, clocking a time of 1:50.01 to advance to the finals. Freshman middle distance runner Cory McGee (Pass Christian, Miss.) clocked a time of 2:07.65 to place fifth overall and advance to the finals of the women’s 800-meter run.
Senior sprinter Terrell Wilks (New Haven, Conn.) won his heat and placed third overall in the preliminaries of the men’s 200-meter dash in a time of 20.60 (+2.8) to advance to the finals of the event. Junior Leonardo Seymore (Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.) was 17th overall in a time of 21.33 (+2.7) and did not advance.
Freshman sprinter Darshay Davis (Mirimar, Fla.) clocked a personal-best time of 23.63 to win her heat and place eighth overall in the preliminaries of the women’s 200-meter dash. She advances to the finals of that event after running the seventh-fastest time in program history in the preliminaries.
Sophomore hurdler Ugonna Ndu (Newark, N.J.) ran a personal-best time of 58.68 in the preliminaries of the women’s 400-meter hurdles to win her heat and place fourth overall. She advances to the finals of her event.
The third day of the 2011 SEC Outdoor Championships begins at 12 p.m. ET Friday from Spec Towns Track in Athens, Ga.
