FAYETTEVILLE -- Though without a first-place in the 2-day meet, the men of Arkansas Razorbacks coach Chris Bucknam won their division of the Razorback Invitational Track and Field meet that concluded Saturday at Arkansas' Randal Tyson Indoor Track.
The Razorbacks won the 14-team meet of 11 SEC schools. All but Alabama, Kentucky and Alabama competed and were replaced at Randal Tyson with Southern California of the Pac 12, Oklahoma State of the Big 12 and Wake Forest of the ACC.
The Arkansas men totaled 99.5 points to 85 for runner-up Texas A&M though the Aggies did end the meet with a bang running a collegiate record and best in the world 3:02.52 for 2017 in the 4 x 400 relay.
The Razorbacks women of coach Lance Harter, winning the top two spots in Friday's pole vault on the NCAA leading 14-10.25 and 14-6.25 vaults of twin sisters Tori Weeks and Lexi Weeks of Cabot, finished third with 75 points.
LSU's 85 1/3 prevailed with Southern California, 80, second.
Bucknam's men won despite likely sacrificing 20 points, with their apparently victorious distance medley relay team Friday night learning post-race it was disqualified on an exchange zone violation between the 400- and 800-meter legs and Clive Pullen, the NCAA Indoor triple jump champion and Jamaican Olympian, scratched from Saturday's triple jump because of illness.
"There are a lot of great programs here, a lot of tradition," Bucknam said. "So any time you can win a meet this time of year with the hard training we are going through, some good things happened today. We are a young team that we really have to coach up, but we did show. We have some depth and took a step forward this weekend."
Scoring the meet, Bucknam and Harter both said, is more for fan interest and and a midseason benchmark, as all the teams here still train hard for the scored meets that count, the conference championships, SEC titles that Bucknam's men and Harter's women defend Feb. 24-25 in Nashville, Tenn., and the NCAA Indoor Championships March 10-11 in College Station, Texas.
"Overall we had a great meet," Harter said. "To have our national qualifiers in the vault keep improving and our multis (pentathletes Kelsey Herman of Crossett and Leigha Brown) second and third Friday with 4,278 and Leigha Brown 4,257 pentathlon points that should advance them to the NCAA Indoor meet. And we had some breakthroughs preparing us for the SEC down the road. That's all we could ask for."
Saturday second-placers for Arkansas' men include Kenzo Cotton, 6.66 to Georgia's Kendal Williams' 6.65, 60-meter hurdler Davon Anderson, 7.80 to the blazing 7.73 of Southern California's Marquis Morris and miler Jack Bruce 4:02.87 to Sean Tobin's 4:00.09 for Ole Miss.
For Harter's women, Regan Ward Saturday ran second, 9:20.84 to the 9:19.91 by Auburn's Veronica Eder.
"We are elated with Regan," Harter said. "We thought about redshirting her and evening her up (Ward previously redshirted outdoors), but she's been training so well we thought, 'You have a chance to go to Nationals this year. Let's not gamble.'"
Bucknam and men's sprints coach Doug Case and men's field events coach Travis Geopfert lauded Saturday's performances that also included a career best and on the NCAA qualifying bubble 5,588 heptathlon placing fourth in that 2-day event, and Carlton Orange running 1:47.78 for third in a fast 800-meters won by Florida's Andres Arroyo, 1:47.25, with Wake Forest's Robert Heppenstall, 1:47.63, second.
"Those are probably three of the top six times in the country right there," Case said. "We are still training hard, so his legs probably aren't feeling all that great. He beat good ones from USC and LSU, so that's a good job, a good run."
Harter witnessed Saturday's women's invitational 800 and sighed.
"Our conference gets tougher and tougher," Harter said after watching a fast 2:08.70 in only her second 800 by Arkansas' Damajahanee Birch only net seventh place.
Texas A&M's Jazmine Fray, 2:04.76, and Katie Willard, 2:05.04, placed first and third with LSU's Ruby Stauber second, 2:05.00.
Sports on 01/30/2017