NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After having last weekend off, the Vanderbilt women’s track and field team will travel to Gainesville, Florida, to compete in the Pepsi Florida Relays invitational at the Percy Beard Track on Friday and Saturday.
The Commodores opened their outdoor track and field season in the Island Relays Bahamas invitational in Freeport, where they posted numerous Vanderbilt all-time top 10 performances and several top-3 event finishes.
In the Bahamas, senior Veronica Fraley finished in first in the discus with her 55.42-meter toss. She ranks second in the SEC and 13th in the NCAA in the event thus far this season. This weekend, Fraley is set to compete in the discus and the shot put. At the SEC Indoor Track & Field Championships, Fraley earned a bronze medal in the shot put with a personal-best throw of 17.25 meters.
Freshman Giavonna Meeks competed in the discus (45.60 meters), hammer throw (48.67 meters) and shot put (13.88 meters) at the Dores’ last competition. She recorded Vanderbilt top 10 performances and is ranked in the top 20 in the SEC in all three events.
On the track, freshman Taylor McKinnon finished third overall in the 100-meter hurdles with her time of 14.76 seconds. At this point in the season, she ranks third of all freshmen and 17th overall in the SEC. McKinnon is entered to compete in the event in Gainesville, along with freshman Santana Spearman and graduate student Beatrice Juskeviciute.
In the 400-meter hurdles freshmen Mya Georgiadis and Allyria McBride clocked the No. 6 and No. 7 times in program history. Georgiadis finished in 59.61 seconds and McBride finished in 1:00.04. Both Dores will have the opportunity to improve their times at this weekend’s meet.
Vanderbilt’s 4×800-meter A relay team of junior Joslin Blair, senior Kaira Brown, graduate student Taiya Shelby and sophomore Julia Rosenberg finished second in the Island Relays Bahamas invitational with a time of 9:01.03.
On Saturday, Shelby will compete in the 800 meters, the event in which she earned a bronze medal at the SEC indoor championships.
In Freeport, the 4×100-meter relay team of sophomore Ella Escobar, senior Madison Fuller, Brown and Shelby recorded a top-5 finish and a time of 46.91 seconds, which is ninth in the Vanderbilt record books.
Other schools competing in the Pepsi Florida Relays invitational include Alabama, Alabama State, Boston University, Central Arkansas, UCF, Florida, Florida A&M, Florida State, Georgetown,…