March 31, 2016

GAINESVILLE, FLA. – A win by Clarence Gallop highlighted a brief but successful opening day of the Florida Relays. The Gamecocks competed in four events on Thursday at Percy Beard Track, two for the men and two for the women.

Gallop started the three-day meet off with a dramatic finish to win the men’s hammer throw. After fouling his first two attempts, he earned a spot in the final round with a throw of 62.25 meters. In the finals, he went for a new personal best of 65.11 meters to move to the top of the rankings.

Ole Miss’ Nathan Loe took over the lead after the fifth round of throws, giving Gallop just one more shot to beat his top mark of 65.41 (214 feet, seven inches). He would do just that, hitting 65.45 meters to beat out Loe by two inches. Not only did he pick up the win, but Gallop also added two full feet to his personal best and moves up into the top 15 nationally.

In the men’s team’s other event for the first night, Kaleb Zuidema placed fourth overall in the javelin. He topped out at 220 feet, three inches on his final throw of the night to move up in the standings.

The women had two track events Thursday night. The open 400m dash started things out, with Erika Rucker and Precious Holmes competing. Rucker ran her first 400 of the season at 54.84 to take 15th overall, with Holmes behind her at 55.23. Closing out the night was the 5K, with three women running for Carolina. Christine Kent had the team’s top time at 17:13.76, good for seventh all-time in program history. Monica York finished 26th with a new personal best of 17:32.

UP NEXT

The main portion of the Florida Relays starts tomorrow, with all of the individual track finals scheduled. The day starts with the women’s 100m hurdles at noon.