Live Results
DES MOINES, IA. – Pedrya Seymour and Jayla Stewart highlighted the day for the Illini on day two, both of the 100m hurdlers advancing to tomorrow's event final. For Seymour, her 13.17 mark was a personal-best in the event and fell four-hundredths behind Cindy Ofili, the national leader.
"You're talking 9:30 in the morning, and it's cool and breezy," explained Garner. "She ran a 13.17 and Cindy Ofili, who is the national leader at 12.66, and she goes 13.14. I think that's a pretty good indicator of the level of performance by Pedrya."
Jayla Stewart will be joining Seymour in tomorrow's final after the freshman clocked a 13.63 time that placed her eighth overall in the preliminary round.
The other personal-best mark for the Fighting Illini came from Lindsey Rakosnik in the 800m. After not finishing as well last weekend at home, the senior clocked a time of 2:09.68 to finish as the top Illini in the event.
"I felt she put herself in a good situation and ran well," said Garner. "She had been putting in some good work. And, last week she wasn't able to execute the end of the race. So, she did a nice job tonight and showed improvement going into Big Ten Championships."
In the high jump, Kandie Bloch-Jones placed overall in the event with a clearance of 5'9.75" (1.73m). Although it wasn't one of her top marks, it was an improvement for her after struggles at Drake Relays the previous two seasons.
"[Kandie] worked through it and did a nice job competing," said Coach Garner. "She missed that bar, which was another opportunity. It was the best she's done at Drake [Relays]. This has been a tough meet for her in the past, so I thought she did a nice job working through it."
In the 4x100m, the Illini ran an unofficial 45.60 time that would have placed them in the final tomorrow. However, it was ruled that one of the team's transfers came outside of the zone, disqualifying the team from the prelim competition. However, the overall performance from the group impressed Coach Garner.
"We got some things accomplished today. It's listed as a disqualification, but we had advanced with our time. I felt like our team did a better job and we executed. We were in there with the top teams in the Big Ten, and I think we can run with them. I was really happy with the first exchange between Janile and Pedrya and we were in the lead. We were really happy with that part because that's what we wanted to see."
Tomorrow, the Orange & Blue conclude the 2016 Drake Relays with the shuttle relay, two medley relays, and the 100m hurdle final. The action kicks off with the shuttle hurdle relay at 8:30 a.m. central time.
