FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas junior Rachel Glenn broke the program’s record for high jump Saturday at the Tyson Track Invitational.
Glenn’s height of 6 feet, 2 3/4 inches added a half inch to the record set by Makeba Alcide in 2013. Glenn was unsuccessful at 6-4.
“It’s a cool start because I’ve been having some rough practices with some self doubt since I haven’t jumped in a whole year,” said Glenn, who is in her first season at Arkansas after transferring from South Carolina. She has not competed since 2022 due to injury.
The top-ranked Arkansas women also won the 1,600-meter relay in a time of 3:28:55 by Ashanti Denton, Shawnti Jackson, Sanu Jallow and Joanne Reid. Jackson, a freshman, recorded a 50.52-second split, the second fastest by an American on the second leg of the relay. Reid also produced a 50.52 second-leg time last March at the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville.
“I knew I probably ran pretty fast, but I shocked myself with that split,” Jackson said in a news release.
Reid, the anchor, took the baton in a virtual tie with the Hurdle Mechanic professional relay team. Hurdle Mechanic dropped the baton and Reid ran the final leg in 51.76 seconds.
LSU (3:33.77) finished second to Arkansas in the relay, followed by Kansas (3:33.90) and South Dakota (3:34.54).
Kaylyn Brown (23.01), Glenn (23.04) and Nichisha Pryce (23.08) gave Arkansas the top three times in the 200.
Jallow ran a career-best 2:01.77 in the 800 meters. Former Razorback Shafiqua Maloney broke a 23-year-old meet record with a time of 1:58.69 to best the standard for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Sophomore Chachi Gonzales ran the mile in a career-best 4:38.46 to finish second.
Freshman sets record for UA men
Distance runner Peter Maru made his Arkansas debut with a school-record time of 13 minutes, 17.86 seconds in the 5,000 at the David Hemmer Valentine Invitational in Boston on Saturday.
Maru, from Uganda, finished third to a pair of professionals. The previous Arkansas 5,000 record of 13:24.32 was set by Patrick Kiprop last year.
Ben Shearer finished third in the 3,000 in Boston with a time of 7:46.96. Kirami Yego finished fifth with a career-best 7:51.56.
Shearer and Yego ran at the Track at New Balance, which will host the NCAA meet in March.
At the Tyson meet in Fayetteville, Romaine Beckford remained undefeated in the high jump with a 7-3 clearance. That height tied two others for the top spot.
Arkansas’ 1,600 relay team of Connor Washington, TJ Tomlyanovich, William Spencer and Steve McElroy finished third with a time of 3:04.28. Arizona State won the relay in a world-leading time of 3:02.73, just ahead of Florida in 3:02.78.
Rojé Stona had a season-best 61-4 1/4 in the shot put to finish third to Nebraska’s Kevin Shubert (64-1 3/4) and LSU’s John Meyer (61-4 3/4).