EUGENE, Ore. — If his first year competing on the collegiate level was any indication, Piotr Antosik has a bright future.
Although the freshman from Poland didn’t place in the javelin, he throw of 210 feet helped him finish 18th at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Saturday at Hayward Field.
Southeastern Conference champion Sam Humphreys, of Texas A&M University, won the title with a throw of 255 feet, 9 inches.
“Piotr has done everything we asked him to do,” MSU throws coach April Thomas said. “I’m proud of him. To get here and compete in this environment is an accomplishment and a memory he’ll never forget.”
Junior Jason Harper placed 12th in the triple jump with a leap of 51-7 ¾, the second-longest jump of his career. The University of Florida’s Omar Craddock repeated as champion at 55-6 ¼.
In the overall standings, Florida and Texas A&M tied for the title with 53 points, while the University of Arkansas finished third with 46.5 points. The MSU men didn’t score.
On the women’s side, the University of Kansas won with 60 points, followed by Texas A&M and the University of Oregon with 44 and 43 points, respectively.
The Lady Bulldogs finished 32nd with eight points after placing 60th last year with two.
The University of Alabama saved its best for the last day, as its 4×100-meter relay crushed the school record and finished second, 1/100th of a second out of first.
That relay finish along with a sixth-place finish by freshman Imani Brown in the triple jump catapulted the Crimson Tide from 23rd to 11th with 20 points, just a half point out of 10th place. It marks Alabama’s first top-15 finish since 2002 when Alabama also finished 11th. It was also the 12th top-15 outdoor finish for the UA men all-time.
The relay team of juniors Alex Sanders, Diondre Batson, and Akeem Haynes and senior Dushane Farrier had a time of 38.54 seconds, bettering the mark of 38.78 it set Wednesday during the semifinals.
Brown, seeded 20th in the triple jump coming into the week, uncorked back-to-back career-best leaps to take sixth overall with a series best distance of 52-2 ¾ on his third attempt.
On the women’s side, the Tide finished 45th. Senior Alexis Paine took fourth in the pole vault.
Senior Krystle Schade took 11th in the high jump after clearing 5-10 ¾ inches. She just missed six feet and a top-eight finish. Senior Wilamena Hopkins, who made her first NCAA appearance since 2011 and came back from two surgeries, finished 20th in the shot put with a series best throw of 50-4 ¾ .
Between the men and women’s squads, seven different members of the Tide’s NCAA contingent added team points to Alabama’s championship efforts and the Tide put finishers in the top half of the field in nine different events.
n On Friday, Jody-Ann Muir and Erica Bougard added to their collection of accolades.
Bougard, a sophomore from Byhalia, finished fourth in the heptathlon with a school-record 5,976 points, breaking the mark of 5,786 she set last year.
Muir, a senior from Jamaica, placed sixth in the 400 meters with a time of 52.56 seconds.
In other MSU action, sophomore Marcus Jackson placed 10th in the high jump at 7 feet, 2 1/2 inches.
n Young leads Ole Miss: It didn’t go as Isiah Young planned it, but the University of Mississippi senior had a fantastic performance in the final of the 100, placing third with a blazing time of 9.96.
Young’s 9.96 lowers his school record of 9.99 set at the NCAA East Preliminary two weeks ago. Texas Christian University’s Charles Silmon crossed the finish line first in 9.89 and Florida State University’s Dentarius Locke was runner-up in 9.91. There was a 3.2 meters per second tailwind for the race.
Junior Mary Ashton Nall finished 14th in the heptathlon with a personal-best time of 5,562 points.
Over the two-day competition, Nall recorded personal bests in the 100 hurdles (13.77), 200 (24.90), long jump (18-11 1/4), and javelin (141-6). She closed strong in the final two events, as her javelin throw was fourth-best out of the 24 heptathletes and her 800 of 2 minutes, 17.76 seconds was good for eighth.
n Batson takes fourth in 100: The University of Alabama earned a pair of individual fourth-place finishes on the third day of the championships.
Batson blazed to another career-best time in the finals of the 100, crossing the line at 10.01 to take fourth. With his finish, he becomes the first Crimson Tide to score in the 100 at the NCAA Championships since Emmitt King and Calvin Smith in 1983.
Batson also passed King, the 1983 NCAA 100 champion, for second all-time at Alabama, standing just behind Olympian and world-record holder Calvin Smith. Since joining Alabama for the spring semester in January, Batson has shaved nearly a tenth of a second off his career-best 100 time.
Senior Alexis Paine cleared her first four heights on her first attempt before finishing fourth at 14-3 ¼, the highest individual national finish of her career.
Freshman Justin Fondren, took 13th in the high jump (7-½) after coming into the meet seeded 20th.
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