FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas’ No. 1-ranked women’s team got third-place finishes from junior G’Auna Edwards in the pentathlon and the distance medley relay as the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships opened Thursday at the Randal Tyson Center.
Edwards finished with a personal-best 4,068 points after recovering from a knee injury she suffered earlier this season, a total high enough to qualify for the NCAA meet. She had the top long jump at 21 feet, 01/2 inch, a mark which also qualified for the NCAA meet in that individual event.
“G’Auna was hurt pretty bad two weeks ago when she hyperextended her knee,” Razorbacks Coach Lance Harter said. “But our medical team put her back together and she was able to patchwork some training with [assistant coaches Chris Johnson and Bryan Compton]. She had a fantastic day.”
In other pentathlon events Edwards ran the 60-meter hurdles in 8.35 seconds; cleared 5-6 in the high jump; tossed the shotput 35-2 ½ and ran the 800 in 2:34.88.
Arkansas has a national-leading time of 10:53.77 in the distance medley relay, but with runners on that team focusing on individual events, Harter put together a team of Isabel Van Camp, Kethlin Campbell, Quinn Owen and Logan Morris who ran 11:00.31.
“It was by no means our best team in the DMR, but it gave an opportunity to some of our kids who don’t get to carry the flag all that often, and they ran absolutely fantastic,” Harter said. “To put it in perspective, our so to speak alternate team would have qualified for nationals as well. That’s how fast they ran.”
Through three finals Ole Miss leads the women’s standings with 27 points, followed by Florida (16) and Arkansas (12).
The Razorbacks’ No. 3 men’s team got a fourth-place finish from freshman Lance Banks in the weight throw (71-03/4) and seventh-place finish in the distance medley relay.
“We expected eight points the first day and we got seven,” Arkansas Coach Chris Bucknam said. “Obviously, we’d like to have done better, but it wasn’t a bad first day.”
Arkansas’ distance medley relay of Reese Walters, Rhayko Schwartz, Jadon Bartholomew and Andrew Kibet ran 9:43.38.
“We had good athletes in it, but it wasn’t our A team, because we have guys in the open events [today] and Saturday,” Bucknam said. “You just can’t spread them too thin. We had to make some adjustments.”
Through four of seven events in the heptathlon, three Razorbacks are in the top seven.
Markus Ballengee in second with 3,280 pints, which trails defending champion Kyle Garland of Georgia by 174 points. Razorbacks Daniel Spejcher (3,110 points) is fifth and Etamar Bhastekar (3,003) is seventh.
“Those guys had a hell of a day,” Bucknam said. “All three of them had personal-bests [in scoring] for the first day. We couldn’t be happier with how they competed.”
Ballengee ran 7.0 in the 60, long jumped 23-51/4, threw the shotput 48-103/4 and cleared 6-5 in the high jump.
Through two events scored Alabama leads in the men’s team race with 17 points with LSU second with 13 points. Arkansas is fifth with 7 points.