Special to Gatorsports.com
AUSTIN, Texas. – Florida’s women posted a trio of top-four finishes and broke a school record to close the NCAA Outdoor Championships on Saturday evening.
The Gators finished sixth in the team standings, giving them a third consecutive top-six finish at the outdoor national meet. They were fifth each of the past two years, and only the Gators and Southern California have finished in the top six each of the last three years. The Arkansas women won the championship, with USC in second, LSU third, Texas A&M fourth and Oregon fifth.
Senior Yanis David capped her historic career with a runner-up finish in the triple jump. David, the only woman in history on the collegiate all-time top 10 in both horizontal jumps, took the lead in the sixth and final round with a mark of 13.93 meters (45 feet, 8.5 inches), but she was usurped by six centimeters on the last jump of the competition.
David finishes her outdoor career as the No. 2-ranked triple jumper in collegiate history, tied for the No. 7 spot on the long jump collegiate all-time top 10, and holding school records in both those events. The Lamentin, Guadeloupe native also finished third in 2016 and 2017, then second in 2018 and 2019 in the NCAA Outdoors triple jump.
Senior Sharrika Barnett turned in the best NCAA Championships finish of her career in the 400 meters, as she took third place with a time of 51.00 seconds. Barnett finished in the top five at three of the last four national meets prior to Saturday.
Barnett came back on the 4×400 relay later in the evening and anchored the Gators to a fourth-place finish, as well as the second-fastest time in program history (3:27.02). The first three legs of the team were freshman Doneisha Anderson, and sophomores Taylor Manson and Nikki Stephens.
Sophomore Amanda Froeynes finished sixth in the heptathlon, but she set personal records in the javelin throw and 800 meters en route to a school-record overall score of 5,891 points. Froeynes, who finished fifth at last year’s NCAA Outdoors, topped Brittany Harrell’s seven-year-old school record of 5,838 points.
Although she just missed scoring, redshirt junior Jessica Pascoe finished ninth in the 5,000 meters – which marked the highest finish by a Gators runner since Rebecca Lowe was fifth in 2008.
