ORLANDO – The Kansas Track and Field team opened their outdoor season at UCF for the Black and Gold Invite on March 15-16, where Gabrielle Gibson sent quite the message in breaking the program’s 100m hurdle record in her debut, running a 13.07 to shatter the previous record of 13.27 (Ashley Brown, 2007).
Gibson secured the first-place finish, a new personal best and the No. 1 spot in the NCAA event rankings with this time. Yoveinny Mota was right on her heels, however, running a 13.12 to also surpass the previous program record during her first meet in a Kansas uniform. Mota, a transfer from Arkansas, now holds the No. 2 time on the Kansas performance list, as well as the No. 2 spot in the NCAA event rankings.
Another victorious Jayhawk this weekend was Gabby Hoke, who took first place in the women’s pole vault with a new outdoor personal best of 4.25m.
The men’s pole vault squad also had a strong showing in the Sunshine State, with Anthony Meacham finishing second (5.33m), Luke Knipe tying for third (5.23m) and Andrew Saloga finishing fifth (5.23m).
In their outdoor debut, the throwers put up big number as well, with Dimitrios Pavlidis and Sofia Sluchaninova both finishing second in the discus throw. Pavlidis posted a best mark of 57.74m on the men’s side, while Sluchaninova finished with a new PR of 53.40m on the women’s.
Oleg Klykov took second place in the men’s hammer throw with a big mark of 66.33m, while Tori Thomas took third in the women’s shot put (15.14m) and fourth in the women’s discus throw (51.21m) for a solid all-around performance.
Aaliyah Lindsay and Tayton Klein represented the jumps squad well, with Lindsay finishing third in the women’s triple jump (12.64m) and Klein finishing third in the men’s long jump (7.45m).
Sidney Smith was another third-place finisher for the Jayhawks, kicking off her first-career outdoor season with a 400m hurdles time of 1:02.25. Pearl Awanya joined her in the third-place category, finishing in the top three of 91 total runners with a 200m time of 23.27.
Both Smith and Awanya were a part of the women’s 4x400m relay team that took second place overall, running 3;31.09 to do so. Deshana Skeete and Gibson made up the other two legs of the team, making for a dominant first performance as a group.
