The Florida women’s 4x400-meter
relay closed the 69th Annual Pepsi Florida Relays in stunning fashion, breaking
the Florida school record in 3:27.43 to claim the collegiate-leading time for
the second week in a row.
“The 4x400 is kind of the signature event for us and we
always like to close the meet with it,” Florida head coach Mike Holloway said.
“It’s the last thing anyone sees of us so we want to go out with a great
effort. The women went out and broke a school record that people thought was
unbreakable and I’m incredibly proud of them.”
The relay team of Robin Reynolds (Miami, Fla.), Lanie
Whittaker (Miami, Fla.), Destinee Gause (Reynoldsburg, Ohio) and Ebony
Eutsey (Miami, Fla.) etched their names in Gator history, finishing as the
top collegians in the event behind professional team One Goal Athletics in
3:24.58.
“It feels great. Our team is young here,” Eutsey said. “We
have two freshmen on this team, so for freshmen to be able to step up and take
that record is a good thing. It means a lot to all of us. It’s just great.”
Holloway was the head coach at Buchholz High School when the
previous Florida record (3:27.53) was set in 1992. Holloway noted that even
then, no one thought the record could be broken. He looks to Eutsey and
Whittaker as leaders on this year’s Gator squad.
“We’ve talked about that a lot,” Holloway said. “The thing
that Ebony has done for us is that she and Lanie Whittaker have said ‘Hey in
the past we’ve kind of had a leg here or a leg there that wasn’t quite ready,
but we’ve got four legs, let’s engage in it every time.’ That’s really
important to them. What they’ve done is they’ve said ‘Let’s see how fast we can
go this year.’ The goal at the beginning of the year was to break the school
record. But I guess we reevaluate our goals now.”
The men’s 4x400-meter relay also turned in a runner-up
finish, crossing the line as the top collegians in the race at 3:04.39. The
Gators still hold the top time in the NCAA from their race in Austin last
weekend at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays (3:02.65).
Florida’s sprint medley relay captured the Pepsi Florida Relays
title in 3:43.62, the second-fastest time in program history. Gause, Eutsey,
Whittaker and McGee claimed the crown easily Saturday, winning by nearly three
seconds over UCF.
Both of the women’s and the men’s 4x800-meter relays
improved on their previous Florida Relays times by over 20 seconds, registering
second-place finishes of 8:30.15 and 7:22.41, respectively.
The Pepsi Florida Relays was UF’s first outdoor home meet and
nears the midpoint of the outdoor season. With the Gators just over a month
away from the conference meet, Holloway likes where his team is headed.
“I think (these performances show) that they trust the
program, they trust our strength trainer, Matt DeLancey, they trust everyone
involved in the program,” Holloway said. “Coming off of indoor nationals, we
started lifting heavy, working hard, and they’re sore. But they come here and
perform at a high level and now they get excited about what’s going to happen.
I think what it shows is that we are going to be okay and we’re going to do
really well here in five to six weeks.”
