FAYETTEVILLE — A time of 10:57.08 placed Arkansas second in the women’s distance medley relay to highlight the first day of the Razorback Invitational in front of 1,488 in at the Randal Tyson Indoor Track Center.
The Razorback foursome of Carina Viljoen (3:22.85), Morgan Burks-Magee (51.90), Krissy Gear (2:05.68) and Katie Izzo (4:36.65) held the runner-up position throughout the race finishing behind Stanford’s 10:55.89. Behind Arkansas were Florida (11:04.00), Texas (11:04.31) and Oregon (11:15.82).
“It was special because we knew the race could set up to be a qualifier for nationals with the caliber of Stanford, Oregon, Texas and Florida,” said Arkansas women’s coach Lance Harter. “We led off with Carina to try to save her for tomorrow in the mile. She ran fantastic with a 3:22 split. Our quarter-miler had a huge breakthrough, Morgan Burks-Magee just did a great job of getting us close in an attack mode.
“Krissy Gear has so much fire, she’s not going to be denied and worked her way up to keep us close with Stanford. A 2:05 is a huge PR for her. Anchoring with Katie Izzo, she’s going to give you everything she’s got, and she was running against a pure 1,500m runner. A 4:36 split is her PR and Izzo is a warrior when a baton is in her hand, in fact she is a warrior any time she’s on the track.”
Bailee McCorkle produced a career best of 14-0 (4.27) as runner-up in the pole vault to a 14-4 (4.37) performance by Georgia’s Kayla Smith.
McCorkle moves to No. 10 performer on the Arkansas all-time indoor list.
In the pentathlon, G’Auna Edwards totaled a career best of 4,004 points to place fifth among a field of 18 entrants. She bettered her previous best score of 3,840 from 2018 as the hurdles and long jump provided the catalyst for the improved tally.
“It was good, but I feel I could have run a little harder in the hurdles,” said Edwards. “But it’s hard for me to run without the competition. So, I need to get that right. I could have gone further in the long jump on my second attempt, it’s just about execution.
“It’s a pretty positive score right now, it’s not the best I can do, but I need to get stronger in the 800m and put some points up there.”
Edwards established an early lead over the field with a quick clocking of 8.36 seconds in the 60m hurdles for 1,048 points.
A 5-7¾ (1.72) high jump earned 879 points, then she added 530 points from a 32-10 ¼ (10.01) in the shot put.
A leading long jump leap of 20-9 ¼ (6.33) picked up 953 points, moving Edwards into second place just 39 points behind Lauren Taubert of Kansas State (3,449).
Then Edwards finished her first multi as a Razorback with a 2:38.19 in the 800m to score 594 more points.
Taubert won the pentathlon with a collegiate leading 4,352 points over a 4,204 for Georgia’s Anna Hall and 4,142 by Oregon’s Mathilde Rey. Edwards currently ranks sixth in the nation this season.
Arkansas alum Sandi Morris cleared 15-5 ½ (4.71) to claim an Olympic development pole vault competition which included Megan Clark (14-3 ¼) and Daylis Caballero Vega (14-3 ¼).
Action in the Razorback Invitational continues on Saturday, starting at 11 a.m. with the 3,000 meters. Featured events in the 1-4 p.m. time frame will be shown on SEC Network+.
Information from Razorback Sports Communications is included in this story.
