April 23, 2015

Photo Gallery

PHILADELPHIA, PA. – The Carolina women’s track and field team battled not only the top athletes in the country, but also mother nature, as it opened competition at the 121st Penn Relays. Intermittent rain, temperatures in the low 40s and wind gusts that topped 20 miles per hour would not deter a crowd of over 22,000 fans who took in the opening events of the weekend.

The day on the track began with the 4x100m relay, and the Gamecocks defied the elements to place third overall in the qualifiers. The foursome of Gabby Gray, Alexis Murphy, Ahtyana Johnson and Briana Haith ran a time of 46.18, finishing third behind Texas and Jamaica’s UTech, respectively. The group will now move on to tomorrow’s championship final, to be raced at 1 p.m.

In the other relays, the distance medley relay team finished 20th overall. The group, featuring Emily Harding, Tamera Harris, Maya Evans and Allie Sprague, finished in a time of 12:51.17. In the 4×400, Carolina finished 37th out of 83 schools. Haith, Johnson, Gray and Aalayah Faulcon made up the relay team, and finished in 3:54.03.

There would be only one field event featuring the Gamecocks on Thursday, with Alexis Murphy and Natasha Dicks competing in the long jump. Murphy finished eighth in the Championship Division with a mark of 5.66 meters (18-7). Dicks would finish 19th in the College Division with a best of 5.50 meters (18-0.5).

Closing out the first day was the women’s Olympic Development 5000 meter race. Mary Reiser was the top finisher for Carolina, crossing in 17:29.91 in her first 5K of the season. Her time was just over a second from cracking the program’s top ten all-time in the event. Monica York (17:35.07), Hannah Giangaspro (17:50.65) and Stephanie Berger (18:15.15) rounded out the team’s participants to bring day one to a close.

QUOTABLE

South Carolina Head Coach Curtis Frye

On the Effort of the Women’s 4×100 Relay Team
It was a tough day, it was a day for us to find out how tough we are. It wasn’t a day for big-time performances but after looking at some of the efforts, our first efforts in the relay was probably in my opinion one of the top five efforts we’ve ever had at Penn Relay. The girls were very tough… I’m quite happy with how they performed.

UP NEXT

The men will join the meet tomorrow, starting at 9 a.m. with the 400m hurdles. Saturday will also feature more individual track events, Jeannelle Scheper and Nakita Gray going for the high jump title, and preliminary relay heats for the men’s 4×1, 4×2 and 4×4.