March 8, 2013
UCF Athletics Social Media Directory
By Jenna Marina
UCFAthletics.com
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UCFAthletics.com) - Aurieyall Scott and Octavious Freeman shined in the 200-meter finals of Friday night's NCAA Indoor Championships, representing the No. 9 UCF track and field team proudly as silver and bronze medalists.
Competing in her third race of the night, Freeman set the time to beat in the two-heat final with the fastest time of heat one, 22.87. Heat two featured a showdown of this year's top-two fastest women in the world: Scott and rival Kimberlyn Duncan of LSU.
Scott jetted to a time of 22.71, which is three-hundredths of a second shy of her personal-best school record, but she was edged by Duncan, who defended the 200M title for the third-straight year with the ninth-fastest time in collegiate history (22.58).
Scott joins Freeman as the program's highest medalist at the NCAA Championships and adds a silver medal to the bronze she claimed in last year's 60-meter final. Freeman earned the second NCAA Championships medal of her career after she finished as the runner-up in the 2012 60-meter finals. They are the only track athletes from the same school to both medal in the same event on Friday.
To get to the finals, Freeman darted to a new personal-record 22.72, finishing with the second-fastest qualifying time behind Duncan. Scott barely broke a sweat in her heat with the fastest qualifying time, 22.97, besting the competition by more than a quarter of a second.
Scott and Freeman also clinched 1-2 in the second heat of the 60-meter semifinals to automatically qualify for Saturday's finals at 8 p.m. ET. Scott ran away with the fastest qualifying time of the day, 7.15, which was two-hundredths of a second short of her NCAA-best performance this year.
Freeman finished a toe behind her teammate with a season-best 7.17 for the third-fastest qualifying time overall. The pair will contend for gold in what is sure to be an exhilarating final alongside some of the fastest women in the NCAA -- Duncan, Clemson's Dezerea Bryant and Oregon's English Gardner.
Making her first appearance at the NCAA Championships, senior Lutisha Bowen earned second-team All-American distinction after finishing 15th in the 60 hurdles. Bowen clipped the first hurdle and was never able to fully recover, clocking a time of 8.55. She becomes the program's 14th student-athlete to garner All-American honors.
UCF is in second place with 14 points behind Kansas (20 points) as the Knights head into day two of the championships. ESPN3 will stream the meet live Saturday from 7 p.m.-9:30 p.m. ET. A tape delay of the championship will air Sunday, March 17 from 7-9 p.m. ET on ESPNU.