May 17, 2009
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - Senior Raevan Harris, junior Danielle Gilchrist and the women's 4x100-meter relay team all won titles for Auburn on Sunday during the final day of a soggy SEC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, as Auburn's women finished fifth overall and the men tied for fifth. The meet was interrupted by rain for the third day, but the weather could not prevent Auburn from having both its men's and women's teams finish in the top five at the SEC outdoor meet for the first time since 2003.
Gilchrist had a big day for Auburn, winning her first career SEC title by taking the 400-meter hurdles crown, finishing fourth in the 100-meter hurdles and helping the women's 4x400-meter relay finish second. In the 400-meter hurdles, she raced to a season-best time of 57.83 seconds, making up for a second-place finish at last year's SEC outdoor meet when teammate Amelia Anderson caught and passed her down the stretch.
"It's a really big accomplishment and I'm really excited," said Gilchrist. "My coaches and teammates believed in me and I just went out there and did what I had to do. I just decided that no one was going to catch me in this race and I finished strong over that last hurdle."
Gilchrist also clocked a season-best time of 13.49 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles to finish fourth. She entered the meet seeded seventh.
Harris won her third career SEC title, taking the high jump with a mark of 1.82 meters (5-11.5). Harris and LSU's Brittani Carter both cleared that height, but Harris won the title with fewer misses, clearing the previous bar on her first attempt while Carter needed three tries. It gave Harris three straight titles at SEC Championship meets, including two outdoor and one indoor.
"On my first attempt the wet surface intimidated me a little bit," said Harris. "But I just sucked it up and used that to motivate me. It's exciting and I'm happy with everything but my last jump that I just missed."
Auburn's other title came in the women's 4x100-meter relay. Despite two shaky handoffs, freshman CeCe Williams came from behind to nip South Carolina's Breehana Jacobs to give Auburn the victory. Junior Shaquela Williams and sophomores Joanna Atkins and Cache Armbrister joined in to finish in 44.10 seconds and give Auburn its first ever women's title in the 4x100-meter relay.
It was just the start of a busy day for Atkins, who was third in the 200 meters, fourth in the 100 meters and also helped the 4x400-meter relay team finish second. Atkins clocked a time of 23.48 in the 200 meters, finishing one place ahead of Armbrister, who was fourth in 23.64 seconds. In the 100 meters, Atkins was fourth in 11.42 seconds.
The women's 4x400-meter relay team of Gilchrist, Atkins, Armbrister and CeCe Williams ended the night by posting a season-best time of 3:34.40 that ranks eighth best in school history, while finishing a close second to LSU.
Much like Atkins, freshman Marcus Rowland had a busy and successful day, finishing third in both the 100 and 200 meters, and running on both of Auburn's relays. In the 100, he clocked a time of 10.13 seconds to finish third. His time ranks fourth in Auburn history and fourth in the NCAA this year. In the 200 he finished with a time of 20.73 seconds, missing out on second place by just one hundredth of a second.
Roland also ran the anchor leg on the men's 4x100-meter relay team that finished fifth. He was joined by sophomore Stephen Fly, senior Jerod Wims and sophomore Michael DeHaven to post a season-best time of 39.50.
"It's a very tough league and we knew we were going to have to scrap for every point," said head coach Ralph Spry. "We missed a few opportunities here and there that could have helped us out, but we did have an awful lot of kids step up, and young kids at that, and that's what we were looking for. Now we can carry this over into the regional meet and hopefully have a good national meet as well."
Also for Auburn, sophomore Zach Clayton finished second in the men's discus with a throw of 55.73 meters (182-10), which was just 11 inches short of his season best. He improved from a sixth-place finish at last year's SEC outdoor meet.
Freshman Girma Mecheso led a big group of Auburn runners in the men's 5000 meters, following up his runner-up finish during Friday's 10,000 meters with a third-place showing in the 5000 in 14:00.32. Junior Jean-Pierre Weerts was fifth in 14:07.30 and freshman Ben Cheryiout placed 10th in 14:19.36. Also in the race were junior Felix Kiboiywo (12th - 14:28.40), junior Scott Novack (14th - 14:38.71) and freshman Jeff Sanders (18th - 14:50.15).
Kiboiywo, the defending SEC champion in the 1500 meters, finished third in that event with a time of 3:44.13. Freshman Julian Matthews was ninth in 3:49.23.
Not long after anchoring Auburn's 4x100-meter relay team to victory, CeCe Williams placed fourth in the women's 400 meters, posting a time of 54.33 seconds.
In the women's 1500 meters, junior Sabrina Fischer just missed scoring for Auburn, finishing ninth in 4:30.73. Sophomore Amber Riley was 11th in 4:37.95.
Junior Laurel Pritchard finished 11th in the women's 5,000 meters with a time of 17:15.48, and sophomore Gerard Brown was 12th in the men's triple jump with a leap of 14.45 meters (47-5).
Arkansas won the men's team title with 141 points, while Florida was second with 129. LSU was third (98.5), followed by South Carolina (88), Auburn and Georgia (72), Kentucky (55), Tennessee (53), Mississippi State (44.5), Alabama (33.5) and Ole Miss (32.5).
Florida was the women's champion with 135.5 points, topping LSU with 113 points. Tennessee was third (106), followed by Arkansas (96.5), Auburn (76), Kentucky (56), Alabama (52.5), South Carolina (51), Georgia (45.5), Ole Miss (44) and Mississippi State (42).
Auburn will take next weekend off before competing at the NCAA Mideast Regional Championships, May 29-30 in Louisville, Ky.