SEC OUTDOOR TRACK AND FIELD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Another heptathlon crown still thrills Arkansas’ Alcide

Arkansas pentathlete Makeba Alcide competes in the high jump during the 2013 SEC Outdoor Championships in Columbia, Mo.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - The thrill of winning an SEC championship has worn off a little for Makeba Alcide.

The All-American senior already owned two SEC Indoor titles in the pentathlon before adding her second outdoor title Friday in the heptathlon on the second day of the SEC Track and Field Championships.

“I guess the first time was pretty impressive,” Alcide said. “Now it’s just about scoring 10 points for my team.”

But there was plenty she could be excited about in her performance, which she capped with a personal-best time of 2 minutes, 13.66 seconds during a second-place run in the 800 meters on a cool and overcast afternoon at Audrey J. Walton Stadium.

That gave Alcide 5,968 points to break her own school record. It also was one point shy of the record in an SEC Championship and, most importantly, exceeded the “B” qualifying standard for this summer’s World Championships.

That was the goal for Alcide, a senior from Castries, St. Lucia, as she opened the postseason. Alcide, who has the highest collegiate heptathlon score, won’t have that weighing on her mind next month when she chases the NCAA championship after finishing 13th last season.

But Friday she was really most concerned with getting the sixth-ranked Lady Razorbacks off to a strong start as they chase after the school’s first SEC title since 2004. They closed the second day of competition in first place with 21 points.

“I think my team is ready,” said Alcide, who also will be competing in the open high jump competition today. “We’ve trained for this. I think we’re ready to do big things.”

The fifth-ranked Arkansas men’s team also got out of the blocks well in the meet that runs through Sunday, scoring 25 points, including 14 points in the decathlon.

All-American junior Kevin Lazas failed to defend the SEC title he won last season and settled for second with 7,579 points compared to 7,781 for Georgia’s Maicel Uibo, a freshman from Estonia. But Lazas, who also won the NCAA Indoor title this year in the heptathlon, said he was treating the meet almost like practice for what lies ahead next month, when he tries to win an NCAA decathlon championship.

He’d been dealing with a string of nagging injuries that affected his training early this spring and has only recently been feeling back to full strength.

“I gained a lot of confidence, definitely, throughout this meet,” Lazas said. “I came into this meet doing a decathlon less than two weeks ago, really. We weren’t sure if that score was going to get us into nationals, so I just decided to come out here and do it and hopefully get a couple more points and score a couple points for the team.”

Lazas edged teammate Nathaniel Franks, who capped his third-place showing with a blistering 1,500. He finished in 4:23.16, almost 30 seconds faster than the next closest contender.

The Razorbacks tacked on 11 more points in day’s last event, the 10,000.

Those gains came with disappointment for junior Solomon Haile, who had posted the best time in the SEC this season. He found himself in a slow race and tried to push the pace in the second 5,000 meters, but that left him vulnerable to getting passed by Florida freshman Jimmy Clark in the final 200 meters. Clark beat Haile to the line by just over 3 seconds with a time of 29:44.54.

“I came to win today,” Haile said. “I’m in good shape. Sometimes it’s good to have someone who can run faster and not always sit and kick, but it works for him. He did good.”

Senior Layne Nixon was sixth.

Arkansas will enter the final two days of competition in second place, trailing the top-ranked Gators by 10 points.

The women also closed strong thanks to Semhar Tesfaye and Diane Robison, who finished second and sixth, respectively in the women’s 10,000. Kentucky junior Chelsea Oswald, who ran an SEC meet-record time of 33:38.35.

In preliminary action, two-time SEC 400 hurdles champion Caleb Cross won his heat and qualified third in 52.14 seconds, Sparkle McKnight qualified fourth in the women’s 400 hurdles and Leoman Momoh qualified third in the men’s 800.

Sports, Pages 23 on 05/11/2013