Tag: Arkansas track and field

Alex Collins, Dave Van Horn on Arkansas’ 2024 Hall of Honor list

Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn and the late Alex Collins are two of the nine Razorbacks greats who will be inducted into the school’s Hall of Honor in 2024.

Arkansas baseball coach Dave Van Horn and eight former Razorbacks athletes across six sports are on the University of Arkansas’ 2024 Hall of Honor class.

An induction ceremony will be held at the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville on Friday, September 13, the night before the Razorbacks play UAB at Donald W. Reynolds Razorbacks Stadium. The list of inductees was announced by the university late Tuesday.

Van Horn has been Arkansas’ baseball coach since 2003 and has led the school to seven College World Series and 20 NCAA Tournament appearances. Arkansas was the 2018 College World Series runner-up to Oregon State.

Among the eight former athletes who will be inducted into Arkansas’ 2024 Hall of Honor class is the late Alex Collins. Collins passed away at the age of 28 in 2023 and will be inducted posthumously.

Collins is second on the school’s all-time rushing list with 3,703 yards and 36 touchdowns in three seasons. A fifth-round selection in the 2016 NFL Draft by the Seattle Seahawks, Collins played in parts of five NFL seasons between 2016-21.

Other Razorback athletes set to be inducted are former quarterback Matt Jones (2001-04), linebacker Ravin Caldwell (1982-85), baseball pitcher David Walling (1998-99), men’s basketball guard Kareem Reid (1995-99), track and field star Matt Hemingway (1992-96), women’s basketball’s Wendi Willits (1997-2001) and softball’s Devon Wallace (2012-15).

Jones was the Razorbacks’ starter from 2002-04, leading Arkansas to two bowl games. Caldwell helped lead the Razorbacks to 32 wins in four seasons (1982-85) before going on to play for the NFL’s Washington Redskins. He was a member of Washington’s two Super Bowl-winning teams in the 1987-88 and 1991-92 NFL seasons.

Here is a full list of accomplishments of Arkansas’ Class of 2024 Hall of Honor inductees.

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Arkansas women’s track wins NCAA Outdoor title

Arkansas won the women’s 2024 Outdoor track championship at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, Saturday

Arkansas won the 2024 women’s Outdoor track championship at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., Saturday to sweep both the indoor and outdoor titles for the season.

The Razorbacks won the indoor title back in March in Boston. Saturday’s outdoor event marked the ninth championship in school history for Arkansas’ women’s team.

On Saturday, Arkansas edged Florida in team standings, 63-59. The 1,600-meter relay team of Nickisha Pryce, Kaylyn Brown, Amber Anning and Rosey Effiong placed 1-2-3-4 in the 4 x 400 Saturday, giving the Razorbacks 29 points. They ran a relay time of 3:17.96.

Tennessee finished second in the relay with a time of 3:23.32. Florida did not field a relay team.

Pryce ran the 4 x 400 in 48.49, a record time. Brown clocked a time of 49.13, tying a record set last season by Arkansas’ Britton Wilson.

To view the full results of Saturday’s event in Eugene, click here.

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Romaine Beckford wins high jump title for Arkansas

Someone showed up to Eugene, anyway.

Romaine Beckford did it again.

The Arkansas high jumper won the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships high jump event Friday, his fourth straight NCAA title in the event.

Beckford, a senior in his first season at Arkansas, jumped 7 feet, 5 inches in Eugene, Oregon, to capture the crown. He won the indoors high-jump title over the winter and won both the indoors and outdoors high-jump crowns last year when he was an athlete at South Florida.

By clearing 7-5, Beckford moved to sixth all-time in Arkansas outdoors history. It was also a season best for him, though he came up short of clearing 7-7.75, which is the height needed to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

Arkansas Pine-Bluff athlete Caleb Snowden finished third and Nebraska’s Tyus Wilson was second. They both jumped 7-3.75

Beckford’s win was the highlight of an otherwise lackluster week for the Arkansas men’s track team. They entered the Championships ranked first in the nation, but finished seventh, as Florida won its third straight Outdoors title.

No. 1 Arkansas finishes seventh at NCAA Outdoors

Good comeback after a disasterous start, but it was just too much and the disappointment remains for Hogs sports.

The Arkansas men’s track and field team was hoping for something more in Oregon.

But three days of events concluded at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships with the top-ranked team in the country in seventh place. Florida won the national championship with 41 points.

What’s more, is Arkansas was fifth in the SEC, even, just a few short weeks after winning the SEC Championship.

Auburn finished in second, one point behind Florida. USC was third with 33 points,  Alabama was fourth with 32 points and Texas A&M finished fifth with 31 points. Georgia (25 points) also finished in the top 10.

The good news for the Razorbacks is that the finish was good enough, combined with the fall’s fourth-place cross country finish and the winter’s second-place Indoors finish to make Arkansas the USTFCCCA Program of the Year. Or, the best track-and-field/cross country team in the country.

Arkansas women doing what men couldn’t at NCAA Championships

The Arkansas women had a solid start, at least.

One day after the Arkansas men’s track and field team disappointed at the NCAA Championships, the women’s team carried the Razorbacks flag high.

For the first time in NCAA history, a single school is responsible for sending four runners to the 400-meter dash final. Arkansas had the four fastest times in preliminaries as Kaylyn Brown, Nickisha Pryce, Rosey Effiong and Amber Anning all qualified for the final.

Brown, a freshman, had the fastest time of the bunch, running the dash in 49.82 seconds. Pryce crossed in 49.87, Effiong at 50:42 and Anning at 50.67. At the indoor championships in Fayetteville over the winter, Anning, Pryce and Effiong finished first, second and third – in that order – to help Arkansas capture the national title.

In the mile relay, the event that ends most NCAA track meets, Pryce, Effiong, Anning and Aaliyah Pyatt finished with the top time in preliminaries, as well, at 3:25.51.

Rachel Glenn had a great day for the Hogs, as well, qualifying for the finals in the 400-meter hurdles. She ran a 53.80 to make the field on Saturday. Before she runs in that final, though, she will compete in the high jump, an event she won the national title during the indoor season.

After the first day, Florida is the overall leader with 26 points through six events. Arkansas is tied for 26th, but it’s not indicative of where things could stand by the time the weekend is finished as the Razorbacks have multiples chances at individual titles with several qualifiers.

Arkansas’ struggles continue as men’s track-and-field disappoints on Day 1

Arkansas men’s track is No. 1 in the nation, but 19th in the standings after the first day.

That could have gone better.

The Arkansas men’s track and field team entered this week’s NCAA Outdoor Championships in Oregon as the No. 1 team in the nation, favored to win the team title and with a few athletes favored to win individual crowns. Day One didn’t start in the best of ways.

Wayne Pinnock, who was going for his fourth NCAA title in long jump, was strongly favored to win a fifth. Instead, he finished fifth, jumping 26 feet, 2 1/4 inches. That finish marked the first time he had ever finished lower than fourth in an NCAA meet.

In the 10,000-meter run and 110-meter hurdles also yielded Razorbacks disappointments.

Patrick Kiprop tripped and fell while he was in second-place with three laps remaining in the run. He ultimately finished eighth. And Phillip Lemonious, who won the 110-meter hurdles at the NCAAs last year, did not make the final round, finishing 13th out of 24 participants.

After the first day, during which five of 21 events finished, Arkansas is tied for 18th with five points. USC leads with 19.

Events continue Friday and the Arkansas women’s team will get their beginning Friday, as well.

Bucknam named SEC Coach of the Year

Chris Bucknam has now been named SEC Coach of the Year 32 times. Thirty-two!

Thirty-two.

That’s how many times now Arkansas men’s track-and-field coach Chris Bucknam has been named SEC Coach of the Year. The total was upped by one this week when the league’s coaches voted him as SEC Outdoor Coach of the Year days after Arkansas won its fourth straight SEC Outdoor team championship.

Bucknam is finishing up his 16th season running the program as the Razorbacks head to the NCAA Championships from June 5-8 in Oregon. He has won 12 awards in the indoors season and 11 during cross country season.

His Razorbacks set a school record in the 4×400-meter relay at the conference championships in Fayetteville over the weekend. Arkansas finished with 110 points, six points ahead of second-place Alabama.

That victory marked the second time the Hogs have won straight conference titles in the outdoor season. The last came from 2003 to 2006. Arkansas also won the triple crown, taking home indoor and cross-country titles during the academic year, as well.

Arkansas men’s and women’s Track and Field ranked No. 1 entering NCAA Championships

Both the Arkansas men’s and women’s track and field teams are No. 1 in the poll ahead of the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

The Arkansas men’s and women’s Track & Field teams are No. 1 in the coaches polls ahead of the NCAA Outdoor Championships, scheduled for June 5-8 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

The Razorbacks’ women’s team overtook LSU for the top spot in the coaches poll after being ranked at No. 2 for five consecutive weeks. Three SEC teams make up the top five with LSU slipping to No. 2 and Florida at No. 5. Texas was No. 3 with Oregon at No. 4.

Per Arkansas Athletic Communications:

Arkansas will have 18 entries in the NCAA Championships, with 12 of the entries ranked among the top 10. LSU leads with 22 entries while Texas and Texas A&M follow with 15 each. A trio of teams — Georgia, Oregon, and Texas Tech — have 14 entries apiece.

The Razorbacks have three collegiate leaders in Nickisha Pryce (49.32 400m), Rachel Glenn (53.94 400m hurdles), and the 4 x 400m relay, which set a collegiate outdoor record of 3:21.92 with a quartet of Rosey Effiong, Pryce, Kaylyn Brown, and Amber Anning.

In the men’s Track & Field rankings, Arkansas stayed at No. 1 for the third consecutive week. The Razorbacks are one of four SEC teams that make up the top five. Alabama moved up to No. 2 with Florida at No. 3 and Texas A&M at No. 5. USC (Southern Cal) is ranked No. 4.

Also from Arkansas Athletic Communications:

“The Razorbacks have 13 entries for the NCAA Championships led by its world-leading 4 x 400m relay (2:59.03) and includes a pair of 2024 NCAA Indoor champions in Romaine Beckford (7-3.75 | 2.23 high jump) and Wayne Pinnock (27-0.75w | 8.25 long jump).”

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No collegiate women’s team has ever run the mile relay as fast as Arkansas did Saturday

It wasn’t just a record. It was a smoking. Texas finished five seconds back.

Rosey Effiong, Nickisha Pryce, Kaylyn Brown and Amber Anning are not just Arkansas record holders, not just McDonell Field record holders.

The Razorbacks women’s track-and-field stars are college record holders.

Arkansas’ mile relay quartet sat an all-time collegiate best Saturday night in the NCAA West First round by running 3:21.55 in front a partisan Razorbacks crowd. In reaching the mark, the relay team not only qualified for the NCAA Championships, but broke the record set by SEC rival Kentucky in 2022.

Pryce ran her split in 49.90 and by the time Anning, the anchor leg, crossed the finish line, it would be another five-plus seconds before second-place Texas joined her.

Anning, Effiong, Joanne Reid and Britton Wilson hold the collegiate mile relay indoor record, too, a mark they set at the 2023 NCAA Championships at 3:21.75. And Effiong was on the Arkansas relay team in 2022 that had to watch Kentucky the record. She was thrilled with getting it Saturday.

“I was like, ‘It’s about time,'” she told the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A few hours before setting mile relay record, the same group of runners clinched individual spots in the 400-meter dash at the NCAA Championships. Pryce, Anning and Brown won their heats and Effiong ran a person best (50.11), but finished behind Brown that heat.

Four Hogs athletes make NCAA Championships on first day of meet

Get a load of this: Arkansas has sent a pole vaulter to the NCAA Championships in 20 of the last 21 years. Sheesh.

The Arkansas women’s track-and-field program continued its status as one of the best in the nation Thursday as four Razorbacks athletes qualified for the NCAA Championships just the first day of the NCAA West First Round in Fayetteville.

Nia Robinson (long jump), Rachel Homoly (pole vault) and both Paityn Noe and Sydney Thorvaldson (10,000-meter run) all to the showcase collegiate event being held in Eugene, Oregon.

Homoly, who is just a freshman, made her best vault ever, hitting a 14-1.25 (4.30) mark to finish in a three-way tie for eighth and advance. Her achievement marks the 20th time in the last 21 Outdoor Championships that Arkansas has had a pole vaulter qualify.

Robinson advanced with a wind-aided leap of 21-6 (6.55) to rank 10th among the qualifiers. Noe finished second in the distance run with a time of 33:54.76, while Torvaldson made her second straight Championships with a 34:54.76 time.

As a team, Arkansas qualified 13 athletes in seven different events for Saturday’s quarterfinals.

Amber Anning set a McDonnel Field record in the 400-meter dash with a time of 50.23. Rosey Effiong and Nickisha Pryce each won their heats in the run, too, with times of 50.26 and 50.31, both of which would have set McDonnel Field records had Anning not eclipsed.

The complete list of qualifiers is below.

Pole Vault

Rachel Homoly

Long Jump

Nia Robinson

10,000-meter run

Paityn Noe

Sydney Thorvaldson

Qualifiers to Quarterfinal | NCAA West

Ariane Linton – 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash

Ambert Anning – 400-meter dash

Rosey Effiong – 400-meter dash

Nickisha Pryce – 400-meter dash

Kaylyn Brown – 400-meter dash

Aaliyah Pyatt – 400-meter dash

Joanne Reid – 400-meter dash

Sanu Jallow – 800-meter run

Analisse Batista – 800-meter run

Destiny Huven – 100-meter hurdles

Rachel Glenn – 400-meter hurdles