Hill, Trojans win national title
USC senior Deanna Hill, a Lake Highland Prep alum, and the Trojans rallied to win the NCAA women’s team outdoor track and field title late Saturday in dramatic fashion.
The Trojans won meet-ending 4x400-meter relay to beat Georgia by a point for the team championship.
Hill put in a strong third leg but bobbled the handoff to Kendall Ellis, who anchored USC’s relay squad. Ellis pulled off a dramatic rally that garnered national attention, edging Purdue’s Jahneya Mitchell at the finish line. USC won in 3 minutes, 27.06 seconds and Purdue finished in 3:27.13.
That wild win gave the Trojans 53 team points, one more than Georgia and two ahead of Stanford, which didn’t have entries in the relay.
Hill was also on the third-place USC 4x100-meter relay team and finished seventh in the 100-meter and 200-meter races, earning All-America honors.
“I don’t know yet. I’m still trying to recover. It feels amazing. I’m so proud,” said USC coach Smith Gilbert, who previously led the UCF program before taking over mentoring the Trojans. “We’ve been training so hard ever since I got to USC. We had this goal. I knew that we had trained for this very moment. I didn’t know what time they were going to put on the board at first, but was it good to see it. We talk about mental toughness all the time. We talk about how to finish.
“One major theme that I have been focusing on this year is that it doesn’t have to be perfect to still get it done.
“I’ve been telling them that life doesn’t have to be perfect.
“Things can go adversely, the but you can still be successful.”
The Florida Gators finished fifth in the team standings for the second consecutive year. Sharrika Barnett, an Oak Ridge alum, placed fourth in the 400-meter dash and was fifth 4x400-meter dash.
The UF men’s team finished second, landing 10 points behind champion Georgia.
Florida’s Grant Holloway won the 110 hurdles (13.42 seconds) after helping the Gators to third in the 400 relay. Teammate Anders Eriksson was second in the hammer and KeAndre Bates third in the triple jump.
UF’s Jhonny Victor, a Celebration graduate, placed eighth in the men’s high jump to earn AllAmerica honors.