Arkansas junior Makeba Alcide marked her 22nd birthday Friday by taking the first title to be decided in the 2012 Southeastern Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships, the pentathlon.
Alcide scored a personal-best 4,126 points at the University of Kentucky’s Nutter Field House, the first time she has topped 4,000 points.
Mississippi State’s Erica Bougard finished second with 4,109 points for the five events, followed by Alabama’s Kaylon Eppinger (4,081) and Florida’s Brittany Harrell (4,050).
Alcide won the high jump (5-9.25), Eppinger took the shot put (40-11.5) and Bougard snared the long jump (19-9.75) and 800 meters (2:14.80). Tennessee’s Ellen Wortham won the 60-meter hurdles (8.35) but did not complete the pentathlon.
Meanwhile, the first four of the seven men’s events in the heptathlon saw defending champion Gray Horn of Florida take the lead.
Horn, a senior, scored a personal-best and school-record first-day total of 3,418 points — just three points shy of the SEC first-day record set by Tennessee’s Jangy Addy in 2008.
Georgia’s C.J. Holman was in second (3,311), followed by Arkansas’ Kevin Lazas (3,265). Razorbacks freshman Gunnar Nixon, the national leader coming into the meet, was in fourth (3,200). Kentucky’s Daniel Buckles was tenth (2,517).
Horn won the long jump (24-10). Holman was first in the 60 meters (6.91). Lazas took the shot put (46-3.50). Georgia’s Garrett Scantling, in sixth place overall, cleared 6-10.25 to win the high jump.
The meet resumes at 11 a.m. with the men’s 35-pound weight throw and high jump. The first women’s event, pole vault, is set for noon. The first track event, preliminaries in the women’s 60-meter hurdles, are scheduled for 2:10 p.m.