BATON ROUGE, La. - With just one meet to go until the AAC Championships for the UCF track and field team, the squad continues to get stronger by the week. With athletes at both the Georgia Tech Invitational and the LSU Alumni Gold, the Knights saw multiple personal bests along with new top-10 marks.
"I was happy to see the progress the distance group made at Georgia Tech and I'm looking forward to seeing their continued development," said head coach Dana Boone. "We also had some good things happen at the LSU meet. We saw our season-best time in the 4x1 and had a few personal bests in the 100 and 200 which was great to see."
Distance shinned in Atlanta, Georgia, as Mariana Rodriguez was incredible once again, setting a new personal best in the 5k. Her time of 17:35 is now eight in program history, the third consecutive event that she has set a new top-10 mark in, as last weekend she showed out in both the 800-meter and 1500-meter runs. Freshman Kendall Hughes continues to show signs of her bright future as she set two new personal bests this weekend in both the 1500-meter run (4:35.62) and the 800-meter (2:13.10).
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the 4x100-meter squad ran the third-best time in program history with one of the nation's best performances. The time of 43.26, run by Daija Lampkin, Rayniah Jones, Beyonce Defreitas, and I'Asia Wilson, was the highest collegiate time in the event, beating out squads from both LSU and Minnesota. Lampkin's day wasn't done though, as she set a new personal best in the 100-meter dash with her time of 11.37, the program's seventh-best mark of all-time. Janyah Jasper went a step further as her 11.28 performance is now fifth in program history and third best in the conference this season. Kiah Williams remains ninth in school history with her new personal best of 23.33. Kai'lyn Kirkland continues to drop times each meet as she set a new best with her time of 24.34. Multiple
Knights finished in the top 10 within a stacked field as the likes of Latasha Smith (23.31) and Rayniah Jones (12.97) led the way for the squad in the 200-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles.
The jumps squad saw multiple personal and season bests as Asherah Collins was the top collegiate finisher in the triple jump with her new best mark of 13.15m, remaining third all-time. Jasmine Scott-Kilgo won the long jump with her 6.28m mark. Natalia Madison set the fifth-best mark in program history in the triple jump at 12.78m.
Next up, the Knights will make the short trip up north for the North Florida Invitational in Jacksonville.