The Gators’ 4x100m relay team of junior Abigail David (Port-of-Spain, Trinidad
& Tobago), junior Natalie Knight
(Snellville, Ga.),
junior Lakecia Ealey (Albany,
Ga.) and sophomore Zan Joseph (Boynton Beach,
Fla.) earned All-America
honors with a seventh-place finish on Friday at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor
Championships at the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex.
Through
12 of 21 scored events, Arizona
State is in first with 38
points. The Gators are tied for 49th with two points.
The 4x100m
relay clocked a time of 44.47 to finish seventh and earn the All-America
distinction. The Gators were just 0.03 away from Tennessee, which was sixth in 44.44. Texas
A&M captured the NCAA title in 43.05. It marks the third straight year and
is the seventh time in the 11 years that Florida’s
4x100m relay has earned the All-America distinction. Both Knight and Ealey have run all
three squads that make up the streak of three consecutive All-American relay
teams.
“Our women
ran well today,” Florida
women’s interim head coach Steve Lemke said. “All of the teams at the national
championships earned the right to be here, and we came in seeded eighth but
finished seventh, so the relay did a great job. They gained experience and
confidence all year, and we are really proud of them to come here and go home
All-Americans.”
For Knight, it marks the fifth All-America honor of
her career as she also achieved the feat in the outdoor 200m and the indoor 4x400m
in 2005. Joseph obtains the All-America honor for the second time after also
running on the indoor 4x400m relay that achieved the feat in 2005, while David
collects the first All-America honor of her career.
The NCAA Championships conclude on Saturday and the
Gators will be represented by freshman Mariam
Kevkhishvili (Tbilisi, Georgia) in the shot put. Kevkhishvili made it to the shot put finals by posting a
qualifying round toss of 16.01m/52-6.50. The only freshman to reach the shot put
final, Kevkhishvili will be looking for her second shot put All-America honor
on the year, after earning the distinction during the indoor season. She will
also be vying to become Florida’s
first outdoor shot put All-American since Kim Barrett in 2004. Barrett was also
the last Gator to earn both indoor and outdoor shot put All-America honors in
the same season.
The final day of competition at the 2007 NCAA Outdoor
Championships is schedule to begin with all field events at 1 p.m. (ET). CBS
will televise the meet from 1-3 p.m. (ET) and live results can also be found on
the internet at www.NCAAsports.com.
Women’s Team Scoring (through 10
events):
1. Arizona
State 38; 2. Southern California 27; 3.
LSU 26; 4. Texas Tech 23;
5. Michigan 22; 6. Texas 17; 6.
Georgia 17; 8. California 16;
9. UCLA 15; 10. Texas A&M 14; 49. Florida
2.
Florida Women’s Athletes Earning All-America Honors (4 athletes, 1 event):
Abigail David, Natalie Knight, Lakecia Ealey, Zan
Joseph – 4x100m
Florida Women’s Athletes Advancing (1 athlete, 1 events):
Mariam Kevkhishvili – Shot Put Final
-UF-
