By: Sydney Davis
COLLEGE STATION, Texas —– What a weekend for Arkansas’s running hogs, both female and male, as they return to Fayetteville from the SEC Indoor Championships. Saturday, the Arkansas Men’s Track and Field team, ranked No. 10, and the Arkansas Women’s Track and Field Team, ranked No. 3, secured the 2020 Southeastern Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships at Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium.
For the men, this is their 23rd SEC indoor championship win, but the first in 3 years. For the Women, this is their 10th indoor win and sixth consecutive.
With 106 points overall, the razorbacks brought home the title with LSU in second (88), and Texas A&M in third (82). Cameron Griffith won his 3rd consecutive championship 3000m. Other scorers in the 3000m include Emmanuel Cheboson in fourth, Gilbert Boit in sixth, and Matt Young in eighth.
Griffith was also the leading scorer on the men’s side for the entire meet, earning him the Cliff Harper Trophy; he earned a total of 20 points.
Markus Ballengee placed second in the Heptathlon, and moved himself up to the Arkansas top four all-time list with 5,706 points. In 3rd place, Tyler Brendel scored 5,626 points. Daniel Sprejcher took seventh. Laquan Nairn scored a silver medal in Long Jump, before also contributing 5 points through a fourth place finish in the Triple Jump.
Other point-contributing performances include Jalen Brown in the 400m (5th), Kieran Taylor in the 800m (6th), and two seventh place finishes by Keyshawn Andrews in the 60m and Carl Elliot III in the 60m Hurdles.
The Arkansas Women also put up a three-digit-score of 102; The win was followed by 87.5 points by LSU and 78 points put up by Georgia.
Junior Katie Izzo took the winning spot in the 3,000m (9:09.02) and 5000m (15:48.34); her 5,000m broke the meet record set in 1990 by Kentucky’s Valerie McGovern. Carina Viljoen won the mile with a time of 4:40.19. The hogs also took Gold in the distance medley.
Krissy Gear took silver in the mile. Bronze medalists include Bailee McCorklein the Pole Vault, G’Auna Edwards in the pentathlon, Devin Clark in the 5,000m. Clark also finished sixth in the 3,000.
Freshman Dazay Freeman also scored 4th in the 60mh.
Indoor NCAA Nationals will take place March 13-14 at the Birmingham Crossplex in Birmingham, Ala. Razorback women have 11 entries and the Men have 8 entries.