Gait-Smith Earns Weekly SEC Honor
COLUMBIA, S.C. (Oct. 11, 2022) – South Carolina freshman runner Gabriella Gait-Smith etched her name into the Southeastern Conference record books after claiming the SEC Women’s Freshman Runner of the Week honor, as announced by the league office on Tuesday morning.
Gait-Smith becomes the first Gamecock to capture a cross country weekly honor since Heather Stone in 2018 and the first South Carolina freshman to garner freshman of the week honors since Monica York in 2014.
Gait-Smith has continued to be near the top of the leaderboard for the Gamecocks since her collegiate debut at Winthrop (Sept. 17) when she captured the victory in Rock Hill. Over the weekend, Gait-Smith turned in a 13th-place finish in the Royals Challenge in Charlotte, N.C., including finishing 11th among attached runners with a time of 18:11.5. The South Africa native set a new personal record for the 5K for the third consecutive meet with her performance on Friday.
Gait-Smith and the rest of the squad will compete in the final meet of the regular season on Friday, Oct. 14 when South Carolina heads to Tuscaloosa, Ala. for the Crimson Classic. The women’s race will begin at 10:20 a.m. (ET) and will be the final tune up before the SEC Championships on Friday, Oct. 28 in Oxford, Miss.
