A&M wins battle but loses war to Florida
EUGENE, Ore. — Texas A&M had been here before, battling it out with Florida in the NCAA outdoor track and field championships, only for the team title to be decided on the last event of the day — the 1,600-meter relay.
Earlier in the season, at indoor nationals, the Aggies won their first indoor team title by defeating the Gators with A&M’s Malik Kerley passing Florida’s Ryan Clark on the final lap to steal the win.
Both teams were in familiar territory Friday at Hayward Field, except outdoors. The A&M had to win the race and hope Florida would fall out of the top five to clinch the team title.
Fred Kerley anchored for the Aggies, who won the relay in 2:59.98. However, on the last leg, Grant Holloway anchored for the Gators and got the baton in fifth place. He managed finish in fourth, clinching the title with 61.5 points to A&M’s 59.5.
Even with the Aggies being relegated to runnersup, Kerley stayed focused on his accomplishments.
“I came into this season with the goal to win every race I was in,” Kerley said. “At the end of the day, we won the 4x4.”
However, it looked like the Aggies had a good shot to win after their first day of performances Wednesday, earning 31.5 points to Florida’s 18 as Ioannis Kyriazis won the javelin with a meet record throw of 270-11 and Lindon Victor won his second consecutive NCAA decathlon title. Then in Friday’s first event, they finished fourth in the 400 relay, adding five more points to their lead.
After 11 events had been scored, the team race tightened to A&M leading with 36.5 followed by Florida with 28 points.
The Gators got a boost from Holloway who won the 110 hurdles in 13.49. But two events later, Fred Kerley won the 400 in 44.10 to negate Holloway’s performance.
Florida then won the triple jump and 400 hurdles to take the lead, 56.5-49.5.
The University of Houston’s 400 team etched their names in the Hayward Field history books after covering the distance in 38.34 seconds to break the school record and the Hayward Field record.
“It meant a lot to us, we lost last year by twohundredths of a second to LSU, so that was on our minds all last year,” said Mario Burke, who ran the third leg. “We finally got a perfect race together.”
Cameron Burrell anchored UH’s 400 really, but he could not afford to be complacent after the win because he was competing in the 100 in less than an hour.
Burrell, who broke his father Leroy’s school record in the 100 with a 9.93 two days ago, finished second in the 100 with a 10.12 into a headwind behind Tennessee’s Christian Coleman.
“Despite what people may think, I had a great meet today,” Burrell said. “10.12 into a minus 2.1 is a good time; I got the school record in 9.93 and to PR, qualified to go to the U.S. trials in two weeks and got the NCAA championship in the 4x100. I’m happy.”
On Saturday, Raevyn Rogers, a Houston native, won her third consecutive NCAA outdoor title in the 800 for Oregon, and she anchored the 1,600 team to victory and clinched the team championship for the Ducks. Isaac Gibson is a freelance writer.