Hogs win 4x4 team finishes third

KNOXVILLE, Ark. – Propelled by two individual titles and two runner-up finishes, No. 11 Arkansas Razorback women’s track and field finished third at the 2010 SEC Outdoor Championships, in Knoxville, Tenn., on Sunday.

LSU won the team race with 132 points, Florida was second with 107.5 points and Arkansas rounded out the top three with 98.5 points. The Hogs won individual event titles in the 4×400-meter relay and the pole vault (Tina Sutej) and picked up runner-up finishes in the 400 meters (Shelise Williams) and the pole vault (Janice Keppler).

"To get third in this meet, we are really pleased," head coach Lance Harter said. "LSU and Florida have an arsenal of weapons. We had to have our young kids step up to a new level and they did that. The 4×400-meter relay dug deeper than they ever have before. Getting that win was just the icing on the cake for a really great weekend. We had some spectacular individual performances that helped us get this third-place team finish."

The Razorbacks won the final running event of the day, the 4×400-meter relay, to sweep the SEC indoor and outdoor titles in the event. The quartet of sophomore Whitney Jones, Williams, senior Karen Thomas and freshman Regina George clocked a season-best and NCAA-leading time of 3:31.05.

Williams also picked up a runner-up finish in the 400 meters (52.60) and a sixth-place finish in the 200 meters (23.97). George also competed in both open events. She finished fifth in the 400 meters (53.25) and seventh in the 200 meters (24.01).

In the first running event of the day, the 4×100-meter relay, freshman Gwendolyn Flowers, George, Williams and Jones earned a bronze finish with a time of 45.25.

Junior Shantel Thompson added a fifth-place finish in the triple jump to her eighth-place finish in the long jump from Saturday. Thompson’s best jump of the day measured 41-5, a personal best.

In the finals of the 1,500 meters, sophomore Kristen Gillespie was fourth with a time of 4:22.94 and sophomore Samantha Learch was fifth with a personal-best time of 4:23.09. Sophomore Brittany Hyter finished sixth in the finals of the 100-meter hurdles. She clocked a time of 13.78.

Freshman Stephanie Brown matched her indoor performance with a fifth-place finish in the 800 meters. She clocked a personal-best time of 2:05.28. With a time of 16:33.81, junior Miranda Walker finished sixth in the 5,000 meters.

The Razorbacks will compete next at the NCAA West preliminary rounds, May 27-29, in Austin, Texas.

Download: SEC_FULL_results.pdf