The No. 1 Florida men and No. 5 UF women have hit the ground
running in Greensboro, preparing for the upcoming NCAA East Preliminary Round,
hosted by North Carolina A&T State University. The three-day meet runs
Thursday, May 23-Saturday, May 25 at Irwin Belk Track & Field Center at
Aggie Stadium.
48 individual qualifiers and 24 relay teams from each region
will compete at either the East or West Preliminary Rounds, as the qualifiers
are then whittled down to 24 individuals and 12 relays who will advance to the
NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore., June 5-8. Florida has been awarded 48
qualifiers (22 men, 26 women) for the NCAA East Preliminary Round.
The Gator men are the defending NCAA Outdoor Champions and have
placed in the top three at the last four NCAA Outdoor Championships, while the
Florida women recorded a third-place finish at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor
Championships.
Results for the meet will be provided by Flash Results and a full recap and
daily results will be available on GatorZone.
Seven Gators enter the East Preliminary Round as the top
seed in the region, including both of Florida’s 4x400-meter relays.
Individually, Ciarra Brewer (Union City, Calif.) in the women’s triple
jump, Omar Craddock (Killeen, Texas) in the men’s triple jump, Cory
McGee (Pass Christian, Miss.) in the 1,500 meters, Ugonna Ndu (Newark,
N.J.) in the 400-meter hurdles and Marija Vucenovic (Sremska Mitrovica,
Serbia) in the javelin all lead the East in their respective events. Craddock also
leads the NCAA in the men’s triple jump and is the defending NCAA Outdoor
Champion in the event.
Five Gators qualified for multiple individual events,
including Darshay Davis (Mirimar, Fla.) in the women’s 100 and 200
meters, Marquis Dendy (Middletown, Del.) in the men’s long and triple
jumps, Lorraine Graham (Springdale, Md.) in the 100-meter hurdles and
long jump, Ndu in the 100-meter and 400-meter hurdles and Agata Strausa (Riga,
Latvia) in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters.
