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A championship day for the Alabama track and field team got even better when freshman Hayden Reed won the NCAA Discus Championship on his final throw, joining junior Remona Burchell, who won the 100-meter championship earlier in the day, atop the podium here at the 2014 NCAA Outdoor Championships, being held at Hayward Field on the University of Oregon campus this week.Reed, who redshirted his first season at Alabama, uncorked a throw of 205 feet and 10 inches (62.74 meters) on the last of six throws to beat two-time NCAA Champion and collegiate record holder Julian Wruck of UCLA by more than two and a half feet. It was the Orange, Texas native's second best throw of the season.
"That last one was a big one and that's when it needed to be done," Reed said. "After that throw, he (Wruck) still had one to go, that was the longest three minutes of my life."
Reed became just the second freshman in NCAA history to win the outdoor discus title, joining Gabor Mate in 1999. Reed is also the third thrower in Alabama men's history to win an NCAA championship.
In the women's 100-meter final, even running into the wind, Burchell raced away from the elite field to win the Crimson Tide's first women's NCAA 100-meter title.
"It was a good start," Burchell said. "I was ahead and just wanted to get to the finish line and stay ahead of the other girls. It was a tough competition and there were fast girls in the final, I was expecting everyone to be coming up from behind me, but I was able to stay in front."
Burchell overcame a strong headwind (3.4 meters per second) to clock a time of 11.25, well ahead of Texas sophomore Morolake Akinosun, who finished runner-up with a time of 11.33, and the rest of the field.
Burchell is the first Alabama woman to win an outdoor national title in any event since Beth Mallory won the discus title in 2005.
From RollTide.comāContinue reading...
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