The Florida men’s and women’s
track and field teams recorded six first-place finishes on Sunday at the 2012
Gator Invite, held at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
The Gators were led by junior
thrower Jeremy Postin (Auburndale, Fla.), who set a new Florida record
in the weight throw with a personal-best mark of 21.31m/69-11.
“I think today begins with
Jeremy,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “Talking with Coach
Lemke, we kind of expected (that performance) today. Coach Lemke thinks there’s
even more in the tank.”
Postin’s teammates David
Triassi (St. Johns, Fla.) and David Levin (Altamonte Springs, Fla.)
finished 2-3 right behind Postin, throwing 20.06m/65-9.75 and 16.77m/55-0.25,
respectively.
In the women’s weight throw,
senior Fidela James (Jacksonville, Fla.) took first for the Gators with
a toss of 19.11m/62-8.50. James also turned in a solid performance in the shot
put, finishing second with a throw of 15.08m/49-5.75.
Senior Keely Medeiros
(Blumenau-SC, Brazil) won the shot put title on Sunday with a throw of
15.67m/51-5.00.
“I was very pleased with
Fidela and Keely’s performances today,” Holloway said. “I thought they did a
great job this afternoon.”
Freshman jumper Marquis
Dendy (Middleton, Del.) won the first event of his young career, winning
the men’s long jump with a leap of 7.20m/23-7.50.
For the second straight week,
a Gator took the men’s shot put title. At the Gator Invite, that honor belonged
to sophomore Stipe Zunic (Zadar, Croatia). Zunic recorded a toss of
16.40m/53-9.75 to claim first in the event.
A major highlight for the
Orange and Blue was the performance of freshman jumper Taylor Burke (Medina,
Ohio), who moved to fourth all-time at Florida with a jump of 1.79m/5-10.50,
good for first on the afternoon. Burke is also the starting goalkeeper for the
Florida soccer team.
“Taylor is a gamer,” Holloway
said. “We know that she’s going to compete when it’s time to compete. She
practices well and Coach Welty has been very pleased and said coming into the
competition that she could jump that or a little bit higher. Coming in, she’s a
high school All-American and we expect her to do great things. But the fact
that she can do this coming off of soccer season is incredible.”
Senior sprinter Alishea
Usery (St. Louis, Mo.) turned in a career-best performance in the 55
meters, racing to a second-place finish with a time of 6.90, good for eighth
all-time at Florida.
The Gators will look to build
off their strong performances over the last two weeks by participating in the
Big 12 vs. SEC Challenge, held on the campus of future SEC member Texas
A&M. The Texas A&M Challenge takes place on January 27 & 28 at
Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium.
“I think the big thing for us
is finding ways to get better and not settling,” Holloway said. “You can kind
of get complacent sometimes and I’m always cautioning them on being complacent.
“The big thing for me is I
want to see a continual effort and keep building on what we’ve done so far,”
Holloway continued. “If you look at what we’ve done every year in the past, we
get just a little bit better each week. Because of that, we always have great
performances at conference and nationals and we don’t want to change that at
all.”
