Razorbacks return to action with trip to Florida
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The second meet of the outdoor season for Arkansas has the Razorbacks competing in the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational hosted by No. 3 Florida this Friday and Saturday.
SEC schools competing in the meet include No. 11 Kentucky, No. 15 Georgia, and Mississippi. Other teams include Coastal Carolina, Florida State, Jacksonville, Louisville, Miami, North Carolina State, North Florida, South Florida, VCU, and UCF.
“We’ve only had one meet outdoors and are heading into our second meet this weekend,” noted Arkansas men’s head coach Chris Bucknam. “We got some distance qualifying done when we were at Oregon, which is good.
“Now we’re kind of opening up our sprinters with two big weekends, first at Florida this weekend and then our home meet next week. We hope we have some good performances across the board, especially in the hurdles and sprints. Two big weekends coming up for us.”
Razorbacks are in action on Friday with field events starting at 2 p.m. (ET) while running events follow at 6:25 p.m. On Saturday, Arkansas begins at noon with the hammer while running events start at 12:20 p.m. with prelims in the 110m hurdles.
One event area that has endured the longest inactivity for the Razorbacks, due to the pandemic which canceled the 2020 outdoor season, is the 3,000m steeplechase. Friday running events include the 1,500m, 200m, 400m hurdles and 3,000m steeplechase.
“We will have three athletes in the steeplechase,” said Bucknam. “Carter Persyn, who hasn’t raced since 2018, so it’s almost like he is a rookie again. We will also have Emmanuel Cheboson and Andrew Kibet. Cheboson has run it in high school, but this will be his first time on the collegiate level.
“We always ask the distance runners to go over a hurdle or two and if they have any kind of athletic ability, it will kind of open our eyes up. Then we take them over to the water jump and sparingly do the water jump, because that can be a little dangerous. After a little practice, then they’re able to negotiate it. They’re super, outstanding distance runners. It will be interesting to see how they do.”
Another outdoor debut will occur in the long jump with LaQuan Nairn, who bettered the Bahamas national record indoors when competing unattached.
Arkansas multi-event athletes – Markus Ballengee, Etamar Bhastekar, Tyler Brendel and Daniel Spejcher – compete in a series of events this weekend in preparation for their first decathlon next weekend.
A pair of hurdlers will double up this weekend as Carl Elliott, III and Tre’Bien Gilbert compete in the 110m hurdles and 400m hurdles. Phillip Lemonious is scheduled to make his outdoor debut in the 110m hurdles and will be joined by Shaka Bogan. Nick Hilson will also be racing in the 400m hurdles for the Razorbacks.
Luke Meade and Matt Young, who produced career best times at 5,000m and 10,000m, respectively, in Eugene, will drop down to the 1,500m this weekend. The 200m field will include five Razorbacks – Jalen Brown, Jeremy Farr, Kristoffer Hari, James Milholen, and Cade Clark.
Ruben Banks, already No. 2 on the UA all-time list in the hammer, will start off Saturday’s action at noon while the 110m hurdle crew races in a prelim at 12:20 p.m.
Reese Walters will compete in the 800m while other middle distance Razorbacks work on speed in racing at 400m. Regular quarter-milers Milholen and Rhayko Schwartz will be joined by Jadon Bartholomew, Ethan Carney and Kieran Taylor.
Roman Turner, who won the 100m in Oregon, leads a crew of six Hogs in the event at Florida as a mixture of Arkansas jumpers and multi-eventers also race in the dash event.
