Jumps Relay Win, Huffman’s Shot Put Highlight UK’s SEC Relays

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BATON ROUGE, La. – Kentucky won the inaugural SEC jumps relay, Nikolas Huffman won the SEC Relays shot put in his outdoor-season opener, while Destiny Carter completed a weekend of personal bests by becoming the No. 2 100-meter performer in school history on Saturday at LSU’s Bernie Moore Track Stadium.

Texas A&M, which has this week’s No. 1-ranked men’s and women’s teams in the coaches computer rankings, won the SEC Relays meet – scored with both men’s and women’s teams combined in this inaugural event. The format featured an outside-the-box scoring system where only relays events were awarded points including throws and jumps relays (see below for in-depth description).

Kentucky placed eighth with 19 points, highlighted by a win in the women’s jumps relay. UK didn’t contest many of the on-track relays this weekend.

The jumps relay pinwheel winner
Kentucky won the women’s jumps relay, which was awarded to the team with the best combined distance taken from adding each institution’s top placer’s mark in the four jumps disciplines: long jump, triple jump, high jump and pole vault.

Sha’Keela Saunders (long jump), Marie-Josée Ebwea-Bile (triple jump), Ellen Ekholm (high jump) and Olivia Gruver (pole vault) combined to reach 83’4”/25.40m, about four inches beyond Texas A&M in second.

On Saturday Ebwea-Bile placed third with a best mark at 43’1.5”/13.14m (+1.8.

Gruver kept UK alive for the “jumps relay” title in the pole vault with a clearance at 12’2.5”/3.72m. She placed 12th overall.

In the women’s jumps on Friday, Sha’Keela Saunders scored a big distance with an outdoor season best 22’3.5”/6.79m. That was her best outdoor mark in a collegiate meet, and the second best outdoor leap of her career. She reached 22′ 7.25″/6.89m (+1.8) in a fourth-place showing at the U.S. Olympic Trials, last summer.

Saunders’ absolute personal best was 22’7.5”/6.90m (+2.1) to win the NCAA Indoor Title in March.

Ellen Ekholm was third in the women’s high jump with a clearance at 5’8.75”/1.75m.

Starting outdoor with a shot put win
Huffman started his 2017 outdoor account with a personal best for competition under the sun: 61’3.5”/18.68m.

“It was a good opener,” Huffman said. “Great meet to open up at. Great weather out here: the SEC Relays so it was kind of preparation for championship meets coming up. We’ve got the Kentucky Relays next weekend to try to improve marks there with SECs and NCAA East Prelims at our track right around the corner.”

One fast April 100m
Destiny Carter placed second in the non-scoring 100m with a personal best 11.05 (+2.0). Only Class of 2015 Dezerea Bryant has run faster wind legal in a Kentucky uniform: a 11.00 in 2015.

LSU junior Aleia Hobbs won in the fastest non-altitude performance in collegiate history: 10.86, second on the all-time list. Javianne Oliver was fourth in a PB 11.16, which moved her up to No. 3 on the UK all-time performers’ list, ahead of teammate Kianna Gray, who ran 11.60 for 12th. Kayelle Clarke was seventh in 11.50.

Carter had a strong weekend, winning a SEC Relays watch with a strong 200m win on Friday to go along with a personal best 21’6”/6.55m (+0.7) to finish third in the long jump behind the two best performances in the country this season.

The Friday winners
On Friday, Kentucky Wildcats won non-scoring events the women’s 100m hurdles (Jasmine Camacho-Quinn), men’s 110m hurdles (Nick Anderson) and women’s 200m (Destiny Carter).

More notable Saturday results
Xaivier McAllister placed second in the high jump, clearing 6’11”/2.11m. Justin Kretchmer was eighth having cleared 6’9”/2.06m.

David Cline placed fifth in the men’s hammer throw with a best mark of 205’9”/62.72m.

Ethan Shalaway tossed 189’0”/57.60m to place seventh in the men’s javelin. Sarah Blake earned the same place in the women’s javelin with a mark at 141’7”/43.16m.

The Kentucky alums and staff at Drake Relays
Kendra Harrison defended her Drake Relays title in the 100m hurdles with a world-leading time of 12.56 – impressive considering the cold, rainy weather in Des Moines.

UK volunteer assistant Kori Carter (Jordan) was second in the 400m hurdles at Drake in 54.72, while UK Class of 2015 Leah Nugent was third in 55.94. Carter’s time is second in the world this year only behind winner Georganne Moline.

Unpacking the SEC Relays
The SEC Relays, contested two weeks before the Conference Championships during a weekend traditionally dominated by meets prominently featuring relays events.

The inaugural meet featured a novel if untested format. Events were scored using the traditional NCAA format (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1) with the winner scoring 10 trickling down to eighth place scoring one.

Only SEC institutions were invited to the meet, and nine entered: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt.

The high scoring team won with the wrinkle that scoring is co-ed. The institutions competed with men’s and women’s scores combined.

Teams could score in 18 relays – 14 of them in relatively typical relays, those being the men’s and women’s 4×100, 4×200, 4×400 and 4x800m relays in addition to the sprint medley, distance medley and shuttle hurdles relays.

The SEC Relays is added a field-event spin to relays as well.

Field Events were scored “relay style.” The single farthest distance mark from each institution in each discipline were added together for a combined four-event total.

Jumps Relay = High Jump + Pole Vault + Long Jump + Triple Jump
Throws Relay = Shot Put + Discus + Javelin + Hammer

Team scores

Other notes
The Kentucky women’s team is ranked No. 8 and the men’s team is up two spots at
No. 20 in this week’s USTFCCCA
Computer Rankings.

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