GAINESVILLE, Fla. - The quartet of Kasey Rodgers, Tiffany George, Zandria Debowles and Rebecca Coadyclosed out the Tulane track and field programs stay at the Florida Relays with a sixth place showing in the sprint medley relay on Saturday afternoon. The Percy Beard Track Complex watched as 25 teams ran in four heats for the event, with Tulane's time of 3:55.24 from the opening heat taking sixth overall in the competition.
"We had a really good track meet this weekend," said Tulane head coach Eric Peterson. "I am happy for or student-athletes and our staff in the way we represented Tulane University this weekend. We are looking forward to getting into the month of April and getting the chance to continue competing at some of the bigger the meets on our scheduled."
The sprint medley relay is made up of 1600-meters of various distances, with a pair of 200-meter dash runs followed by a 400-meter dash and the 800-meter run closes things out. Rodgers led the race off with a solid opening leg and George completed the opening portion of the race with a nice 200, before handing to DeBowles.
DeBowles got off to a nice start in the pack of six teams, but got boxed in a little bit coming down the back stretch before handing the baton to Coady. The senior closed out the relay with a 2:11.30 clip in the 800-meter to finish fifth in the fastest heat of the day and eventually claim sixth overall in the event.
"Our student-athletes really competed well this weekend," Peterson said. "We have some postavie momentum going our way right now and that is a great thing. Our kids are very upbeat and excited about competing and that is where we want them at to be right now."
Florida won the event with a time of 3:45.46, while UCF was the only Conference USA team to finish ahead of the Olive and Blue. The Knights posted a time of 3:54.43 to win the second heat of the afternoon. Tulane finished ahead of in-state foe Nicholls State, along with North Florida, Maryland and Wisconsin