EUGENE, Ore. -- Arkansas' silver lining under leaden skies showed up in the last event of the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Wednesday night.
Running on a bad ankle, sophomore Obi Igbokwe anchored the 1,600-meter relay team to second place in the final heat to give the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville three qualifiers for Friday's finals, joining the 400 relay team and junior Kemar Mowatt in the 400 hurdles.
"There's light at the end of the tunnel," men's Coach Chris Bucknam said. "There was a lot of carnage out there today, but I'm proud of the way my guys battled out there."
After six of 21 events, Texas A&M leads with 21½ points, with Virginia second with 20 and Florida third at 18. Arkansas scored one point in the long jump.
Igbokwe, who placed 20th in the 400, took the baton in first place and came home second in 3:04.10 to give Arkansas the final qualifying spot. The pain, he said, was worth the gain.
"Yeah, for sure it definitely was," Igbokwe said. "My first race, my ankle started acting up real bad and I really couldn't get up to speed.
"I was hoping I could push through the pain in the 4x4, and I think I did that."
Earlier, Mowatt found the right balance between competitive instinct and his coach's advice to give the Razorbacks a performance they sorely needed.
Mowatt held off Florida's Eric Futch at the finish line to win his heat of the 400 hurdles in 48.64 seconds. The junior from Jamaica broke his school record of 48.79 set at the SEC championships with the best time among the finalists.
"I went out kind of slow, but I picked it up as the race went along," Mowatt said, "because coach told me not to do anything crazy. It's still fast, but he told me not to do anything too crazy on the first 200 meters."
Futch closed the gap off the final curve and pushed Mowatt to the finish line.
Senior Andreas Trajkovski scored the Razorbacks' first point by placing eighth in the long jump with a mark of 25 feet, and freshman Harrison Schrage was 16th at 24-3½.
In the decathlon, sophomore Gabe Moore was 13th after five events with 3,970 points, and junior Derek Jacobus was 16th with 3,918.
The Razorbacks' 400 relay team started the day on the track finishing third in the first heat in 38.79 seconds and then had to sweat out the other two heats to advance on time.
"Our first two handoffs were really bad," anchor Kenzo Cotton said, "but the actual legs they ran were really good. If we can get our handoffs down, I think we'll definitely be up there.
"We definitely can even win it, we've just got to execute. That's our main thing."
Cotton, bothered by a sore back, failed to advance in the 100 (10th in 10.11) and 200 (12th in 20.52), and Josh Washington and Roy Ejiakuekwu didn't make it in the 200, either.
In the 800, sophomore Carlton Orange made a late move on the backstretch but wasn't able to hold his position to take fourth in his heat (1:47.56) and 13th overall.
Arkansas State University had one double-qualifier in junior sprinter Jaylen Bacon. The Red Wolves' record-holder in the 100 at 9.97 qualified fifth in 10.02, then came back to place eighth in the 200 in 20.34.
A malfunction in the 100 with some starting blocks forced a restart, but Bacon said he didn't let the delay affect him.
"That's just part of the game," he said. "One of the biggest things we've been working on is the start, and my first 60 was pretty good.
"My knee tightened up on me, which is something that's never happened before, but it's not a serious injury. We're going to work that out."
Arkansas State junior hammer thrower Cristian Ravar Ladislau placed 16th at 214-4, 7 feet shy of his school record set at the NCAA West Region Preliminary.
Sports on 06/08/2017