Gamecocks Travel to Gainesville for Pepsi Florida Relays
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (March 30, 2023) – South Carolina Track & Field is headed to Gainesville for the first of two meets that the Gamecocks will compete in at the University of Florida. First up on the docket is the 2023 Pepsi Florida Relays that will take place on Friday, March 31 and conclude on Saturday, April 1.
Follow the Meet
Live results for the Florida Relays can be found by clicking the following link. There will also be a link to live streaming of the meet (link to come later). Streaming on Friday will begin at 4:05 p.m. with the women’s 1500m and will run until the conclusion of the opening day. Saturday’s stream will begin at 12:55 and continue through the 4x400m relays. Fans can also follow along with updates on Twitter by following @GamecockTrack.
Meet Information
The Florida Relays will consist of 32 teams and will be a two-day meet held at Percy Beard Track at James G. Pressly Stadium. Collegiate competition is set to begin on Friday at 11 a.m. with the women’s hammer throw. The first track event on Saturday will be the women’s 4x800m relay at 11:40 a.m. Saturday will begin with men’s discus at 9 a.m. and the first running event at 10:30 a.m. in form of the 4x200m relays.
Coaches Corner
Competing in the annual Florida Relays:
“The Florida Relays is a meet that is known nationwide, even to those who are not necessarily ‘track’ people. Each year this meet produces strong competition and pushes us to be better than we were when we arrived. I expect this year to be no different. We are coming off of a good home meet at the Weems Baskin Relays and we won events we needed to win and set strong standards in the East Region. I am excited to see how our team responds to such a high-quality meet in Gainesville and I know they will be up for the challenge.”
Winning at the Weems
South Carolina is coming off a strong performance at the 2023 Weems Baskin Relays, winning 14 overall events. On day one, the Gamecocks won three relays and one individual title. The men’s 4x800m relay of George Luke, Jackson Dawson, Jake Mangione and Alex Galbraith set a new Cregger Track facility record when they crossed the finish line in 7:43.13. The women made it a clean 4x800m sweep as Savannah Bowers, Emily Pierontoni, Emily Smith and Ally Wilson captured the podium with a time of 9:18.26.
Saturday saw 10 more wins of Carolina, including seven individual titles. On the men’s side, Evan Miller dominated in the men’s 400m with an NCAA-best time of 45.60. Filip Demsar also set an NCAA-leading mark in the men’s 110m hurdle when he ran a personal best 13.67 (1.1). Dylan Targgart posted the second-best shot put mark in the East Region when he tossed a new personal record of 19.42m (63-8.75).
There were four individual wins on the women’s side on Saturday, including Jayla Jamison in the women’s 100m with a time of 11.44 (1.2). Joining Jamison in the winners column was Jahnile Registre in the women’s 200m, running 23.76 (1.5). Kieley Gayle and Brooke Donoghue each picked up wins in their respective events with Gayle winning the 800m (2:12.52) and Donoghue capturing the open 1500m victory (4:41.72).
