School Record Leads Williams to SEC Co-Runner of the Week

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – In recognition of her NCAA-leading and school-record performance last weekend at the Payton Jordan Invitational, senior Chrishuna Williams has been named the SEC Co-Runner of the Week. Williams is the fifth Razorback to earn weekly SEC track and field honors in 2015, and the third to do so during the outdoor season.

Running in just the fourth 800-meter race of her outdoor career, Williams raced to a school-record time of 2:01.61 to break Arkansas’ 10-year-old program mark set by two-time NCAA champion Aneita Denton in 2005. She won the top section of the 800 meters at the Payton Jordan Invitational, leading a field that included three sub-2:02 times. With her performance, Williams knocked more than two seconds off her previous personal best.

The Dallas, Texas, native entered the race with an outdoor best of 2:03.77 which she’d set earlier this year on the same track at the Stanford Invitational. Williams’ school record is nearly eight seconds faster than her event debut of 2:09.59 at last year’s John McDonnell Invitational. In her first full season competing at the distance, Williams won the SEC indoor title back in February.

In addition to their efforts at the Payton Jordan Invitational, the Razorback women also hosted the Arkansas Twilight last weekend. Collectively, Arkansas tallied 13 wins and 18 season-best marks on its way to taking over the No. 1 spot in this week’s release of the USTFCCCA Top 25 which is the program’s first-ever outdoor No. 1 ranking. Through six weeks of the outdoor campaign, the Razorbacks have registered 24 top-30 national performances.

As the nation’s top-ranked team, the Razorbacks headline a nation-leading nine SEC teams in the national poll including six of the top 10. Arkansas begins its postseason May 14-16 at the SEC Outdoor Championships in Starkville, Miss. The Razorback women are the defending SEC outdoor champions and have won five of the past seven league competitions overall.

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