Canes track and field achieves consistent success in Pepsi Florida Relays

Sophomore Alysha Newman finished first in the pole vault at the Miami Invitational track meet on Saturday afternoon. Monica Herndon // Photo Editor

The men’s and women’s track and field teams were in the swamp over the weekend, but that didn’t slow them down one bit in the 2015 Pepsi Florida Relays, held in Gainesville at the Percy Beard Track on Friday and Saturday.

Sophomore Shakima Wimbley got the Canes off and ran on Friday with a new school record in the women’s 400m, clocking in at 51.50 seconds to take second place in the event. Wimbley bested the previous record time of 51.65 seconds set by Charlette Greggs in 2003.

Fellow sophomore Jamika Glades ran a personal-best time of 13.38 seconds in the 100m hurdles as well as a season-best time of 58.61 seconds in the 400m hurdles and placed 11th in both events.

Freshman Robert Grant also performed well in the 400m hurdles with a season-best time of 51.80 seconds. He moved into third place on Miami’s all-time list.

The Canes continued their impressive showing in the jumps and throws events on Saturday.

Junior Precious Ogunleye showed why Miami was thrilled she transferred from University of Central Florida in 2014, when she placed third in the women’s invitational hammer throw with a mark of 60.05m.

Sophomore Gian Piero Ragonesi finished fifth in the men’s shot put with a throw of 17.33m and took eighth in the men’s invitational discus with a mark of 54.83m. Redshirt freshman Daniel Polinski set a personal-best in the men’s shot put with a toss of 16.50m: good enough for fourth all-time in the UM record books.

Junior John-Patrick Friday moved into second place in UM history and finished eighth overall with a personal-best triple jump mark of 15.42m.

Freshman David Njoku followed suit with an eighth place finish in the men’s invitational high jump, clearing 2.06m to post the fifth best mark in UM history.

The Hurricanes closed out the meet with the 4x400m relays. The women’s team, composed of Kelsey Balkwill, Taneisha Cordell, Anthonia Moore and Wimbley, finished fourth in the Tom Jones 4x400m relay with a time of 3:35.49.

The men’s group of Josh Johnson, Joseph Ryan, Anthony Wolliston and Grant ran the 4x400m relay in 3:10.67 to place seventh in the event. The squad missed freshman sprinter Henri Delauze, who was busy over the weekend competing for the Bahamas at the CARIFTA Games.

“We were a little flat last weekend, and we came out this weekend and had some really good performances yesterday and today,” Director of  Track and Field Amy Deem told HurricaneSports.com.

The Canes have their final home meet of the season next weekend with the Hurricane Alumni Invitational.