No. 5 Arkansas Set for National Relay Championships

April 26, 2018

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – No. 5 Arkansas is set to host one of the largest meets of the weekend – The National Relay Championships Apr. 27-28 at John McDonnell Field. The meet includes 16 Power Five programs and will be highlighted by a relay only format Saturday night that will be broadcast LIVE on SEC Network.

The Razorbacks are one of nine Southeastern Conference teams ranked among the USTFCCCA top-25 and have been in the top-five during the entire outdoor season thus far, holding the No. 1 spot in four of the last five polls. Arkansas also leads the nation in women’s pole vault (Best Foursome in the Country by Event per USTFCCCA) where the Razorbacks currently boast a squad average of 4.29m (14’-1”).

Head coach Lance Harter’s squad will be lining up against student-athletes from Arkansas, Baylor, Florida, Florida State, Kansas, Kentucky, Miami, Michigan, Oklahoma State, Stanford, TCU, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin.

“The concept has been hatched so to speak, now it’s a matter of executing it,” women’s head coach Lance Harter. “The kids are excited, hopefully, our community is as well so we can bring a spirit of the Penn Relays and Drake Relays to Fayetteville. I think [the competition] will be very balanced. There’s going to be some great sprint representatives that are going to challenge our sprint crew and I think in the distances and middle-distances there’s some very salty competition on the men’s and women’s side so to balance everything out it’s going to be a great competition across the board. In the field events, I was very pleased to see that we’re going to have some great field competitors here. Our focus will be the 4-x-100-meters and the 4-x-400-meters. Those are the two that we want to continue to nurture and ultimately get ready for SEC’s and nationals,” Harter continued.

Events to Watch

Pole Vault
Seven of the top-25 pole vaulters in the NCAA will be on the runway at John McDonnell Field including indoor NCAA Champion Lexi Jacobus! Also in the field will be No. 3 Tori Weeks of Arkansas, Kansas’ Laura Taylor (No. 7) & Andrea Willis (No. 13), Virginia Tech’s Rachel Baxter (No. 9), Texas’ Shay Petty (No. 13), and Stanford’s Kaitlyn Merritt (No. 16).

100-meters
The women’s 100-meters at the National Relay Championships will feature seven athletes who have run 11.30 or faster including Arkansas’ Jada Baylark (NCAA No. 9) and Kiara Parker (NCAA No. 24) who have run season-best of 11.02 and 11.14, respectively. Catch the women’s 100-meters Friday afternoon at 3:57 p.m. CT.

200-meters
Six of the top-25 200-meter women in the country will battle it out at 6:25 p.m. CT Friday night including Kentucky’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (No. 6) & Kayelle Clarke (No. 13) & Kianna Gray (No. 21), Baylor’s Taylor Bennett (No. 20), Florida State’s Shauna Helps (No. 22) and Arkansas’ Jada Baylark (No. 24).

100-meter hurdles
100-meter hurdle NCAA-leader Rushelle Burton (12.64) of Texas highlights a LOADED field. Joining the NCAA-leader will be Kentucky’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (No.4) & Jacklyn Howell (No.11), Texas’ Pedrya Seymour (No.5), Arkansas’ Janeek Brown (No.8), Tennessee’s Alexis Duncan (No.9) & Florida State’s Courtney Jones (No.14). This NCAA top-15 showdown is scheduled for Friday at 3 p.m. CT.

4-x-100-meter relay
Out of the five top-25 women’s 4-x-100-meter relays that will be in attendance this weekend, three are from the SEC including Kentucky (NCAA No. 5), Arkansas (NCAA No. 9) and Tennessee (NCAA No. 13). The sprint relays will kick off the relay portion of the meet Saturday night at 7:02 p.m. CT.

For the latest information on Arkansas men’s and women’s track and field, follow @RazorbackTF on Twitter.