Senior
multi-event athlete Gray Horn (Waynesfield, Ohio) leads the pack,
including NCAA leader Arkansas’ Gunnar Nixon, at the 2012 Southeastern
Conference Indoor Championships, setting a new Florida first-day heptathlon record
with 3,418 points, coming just three points shy of tying the SEC Indoor
Championships first-day record.
“There's
been a lot of hype surrounding the heptathlon: Gray vs. the Arkansas guys and
the Georgia guys,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said. “Gray is such
a cool customer. We talked to Gray about just coming out, executing and giving
big efforts. What we have to do is come back, get some food in him and get him
prepared for tomorrow."
Horn
tied his career-best in the men’s 60 meters with a time of 6.96, placing second
in the event to start Friday’s competition. Horn then went on to capture the
men’s heptathlon long jump, earning a 7.57m/24-10 mark to close in on Georgia’s
Cory Holman by one point.
The
Ohio native used the shot put to make his move, throwing 13.70m/44-11.50 to advance
to the top of the leaderboard with 2,559 points. Horn kept the final event, the
high jump, close as he nearly broke his personal best with a leap of 2.06m/6-9,
finishing the event tied for second and closing out the day with a
personal-best and Florida school-record 3,418 points.
Horn
will finish the heptathlon on Saturday afternoon, as he has the 60 meter
hurdles, the pole vault and the 1,000 meters remaining.
Sophomore
multi-event athlete Brittany Harrell (McComb, Miss.) set a new Florida
record en route to her fourth-place finish in the women’s pentathlon on Friday
evening. Harrell scored a career best of 4,050 points, making her the first
Gator pentathlete to ever score more than 4,000 points (3,999, Dorchelle
Webster, 2/24/90) and ending a 22-year-old record down to the day.
“I'm
very pleased with our performances today,” Holloway said. “When I talk to the
team later in our team meeting, I'm going to talk about effort. You come to
this meet and if you just put forth the effort, after all the training we've
done, great things will happen. As we saw from Brittany today, I think her mark
(4,050) is strong enough to get her to the NCAA Championships and for her to
come out and compete the way she did was awesome."
Harrell
started the day with a season-best time in the 60 meter hurdles, finishing 10th
in 8.81. Harrell then moved on to the high jump, where she cleared 1.73m/5-8 to
tie for second in the event, catapulting herself into third place on the
leaderboard.
Harrell
faltered slightly in the shot put, throwing for a 10.95m/35-11.25 mark in the
event to place fifth. She turned it around in the final two events of the
evening, as Harrell earned back-to-back career bests in the long jump and 800
meters. In the long jump, Harrell soared a personal best 5.81m/19-0.75 on her
final jump to put herself in contention heading into the final event, the 800
meters. Harrell ran the best race of her young career, taking second in the 800
meters with a personal best time of 2:19.86 to finish fourth overall, scoring
five points for Florida’s women’s team.
"I
think this is kind of a prelude for what we want to do the rest of the weekend,”
Holloway finished. “There's no doubt this set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
When the rest of the team sees how Brittany and Gray did tonight, they're going
to be very pleased and it's going to get them fired up for what they need to
do."
