The Florida Gators track and field team will split up this weekend for the first time all season. With the SEC Indoor Championships in two weeks, the distance runners will head to Husky Classic in Seattle, Washington while everyone else will head to New Mexico for the Don Kirby Albuquerque Elite Meet.

The Gators head into Friday's (and Saturday's) meet in New Mexico and Washington ranked No. 2 overall in the latest USTFCCCA poll.

The Don Kirby Elite meet, which begins Friday and is hosted by the University of New Mexico is a one-day meet is scheduled to begin with field events at 4:15 p.m ET and conclude with track events starting at 7:30 p.m. ET. Aside from the Gators, the Don Kirby Elite meet only has a handful (at best) of good programs scheduled to compete. Texas (No. 4) and Stanford (No. 7) are the other ranked programs.

The Husky Classic on the other hand -- which is a two-day meet beginning Friday and continuing on Saturday -- has a stunning field of competitors. That's not even mentioning the 120-entries in the one mile run. Arizona (No. 5), Stanford (No. 7), Minnesota (No. 10), Ohio State (No. 15), Wisconsin (No. 17), Oregon (No. 21) and Arizona State (No. 24) among others will compete against the Gators for supremacy.

The Dempsey Indoor facility -- which doubles as Washington's indoor practice facility -- is widely considered to be the fastest track in the country.

Live stats for the Don Kirby Elite Invitational will be provided by GoLobos.com. Stats for the Husky Classic can be found here, and live video of the meet can be found here or here courtesy of FloTrack.org.

With the SEC Indoor Championships coming up later this month, the Gators track and field team is showing no signs of slowing down. Seven total victories, two NCAA automatic qualifying marks and countless personal bests was the theme of the Gators' visit to Blacksburg, Virginia.

Lead by Olympic hopeful Jeff Demps, the Gators cruised to six victories on the first day of competition. Demps' time of 6.59 seconds in the 60m final was good enough to qualify him to the NCAA Indoor Championships in March. Marquis Dendy, Eddie Lovett, Tony McQuay and Leonardo Seymore were all victorious on the first day as well. Dendy in the long jump, McQuay in the 400m sprint and Seymore in the 200m sprint.

On the second day of competition, only McQuay in the 400m open and Dwight Barbiasz in the high jump won their respective events. But that doesn't mean the rest of the day two wasn't eventful either. Frankie Hammond Jr. finished right behind Barbiasz for second place in the high jump and Omar Craddock (despite finishing third overall) reached the NCAA automatic qualifying mark in the triple jump with a height of 16.34 meters.

The team will be split up next week as part of the team will travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico to take part in the Don Kirby Elite Invitational and others will travel to Seattle, Washington and participate in the Husky Classic.

The Florida Gators track and field team invades Rector Field House in Blacksburg, Virginia this weekend for the Virginia Tech Elite Meet. The Gators, who are ranked No. 2 in the country behind the Arkansas Razorbacks, hope to continue their strong start to the season. The two-day event, starts at 5 p.m. ET on Friday and continues at 11 a.m. ET on Saturday.

The schedule, unlike the Texas A&M Challenge, combines events over the course of two-days instead of just one-day. This allows the athletes a better chance to rest in-between their respective events. There will be ten teams competing this weekend, including three from the SEC. Those competing from the SEC are Auburn, Florida and Georgia. They will be joined by Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech (obviously) and Wake Forest from the ACC, and Louisville from the Big East.

Four of those teams, Florida (No. 2), Virginia Tech (No. 12), Georgia (No. 22) and Auburn (No. 25) are ranked in the latest Top 25 of the USTFCCCA poll. The Gators remained at No. 2 despite a strong performance last week at the A&M Challenge, while Virginia Tech dropped one spot and Auburn and Georgia each rose one spot in the poll.

In action for the Gators on Friday are: Marquis Dendy (long jump), David Levin, Jeremy Postin and David Triassi (weight throw), Eddie Lovett and William Wynee (60m hurdles), Jeffery Demps (60m dash), Tony McQuay (400m sprint), and Hugh Graham Jr. and Leonardo Seymore (200m sprint open).

In action for the Gators on Saturday are: Omar Craddock and Dendy (triple jump), Dwight Barbiasz and Frankie Hammond Jr. (high jump), Jovon Toppin (400m sprint), Dedric Dukes, Tony McQuay and Seymore (200m sprint invite), Graham Jr., McQuay, Toppin and Sean Obinwa (4x400m relay).

Demps' 2012 season begins today with the 60m dash as he attempts to qualify for the Summer Olympics in London later this year. According to GatorZone, the 60m dash is scheduled to take place at 6:20 p.m and should Demps qualify for the finals, he'll run it again at approximately 8:15 p.m.

You can follow the meet live, at FlashResults.com or on Twitter at @GZTrackandField.

Senior Gray Horn set the Florida Gators record for the heptathlon, with a point total of 5,971 as the Gators had another impressive showing at the Texas A&M Challenge. Horn, won the heptathlon by finishing in first in the 60m dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 60m hurdles, second in the 1,000m run and third in the pole vault. With that performance, Horn also hit the NCAA automatic qualifying mark, meaning he'll be competing in the heptathlon at the NCAA Indoor National Championships in March.

Also, according to Track & Field News, Horn's performance in the heptathlon was the sixth best collegiate performance ever.

In the field events, the Gators nearly swept every single event. Omar Craddock won the long jump, Jeremy Postin won the weight throw, Dwight Barbiasz won the high jump, Kemal Mesic won the shot put and Marquis Dendy came in fourth in the triple jump. Mesic's distance of 20.31m was good enough to qualify him for the NCAA Indoor National Championships as well. Also of note, Frankie Hammond Jr. came in fourth in the high jump.

As for the track events, while impressive, the Gators showed that there is still room for improvement. William Wynne came in third in the 60m hurdles, Hugh Graham Jr. came in second in the 400m despite it being the first time he has ever run that event, Sean Obinwa came in second in the 800m, Leonardo Seymore finished fifth in the 200m and the 4x400 relay team received a DNF for a mishap on the 2nd leg.

The best news to come out of the track side of things, was that Obinwa's time in the 800m of 1:47.22 also hit an NCAA automatic qualifier mark. So he'll be competing alongside Horn and Mesic at the NCAA Indoor National Championships.

Due to the Texas A&M Challenge being designed to pit conferences against conferences in terms of point totals, the Gators were paired up with the Tennessee Volunteers for scoring purposes. Team SEC finished in third place (yes, out of three) with 164.50 points. Team Big 12 (Texas A&M and Texas Tech) finished first with 277.25 points and Team Pac 12 (Oregon and Arizona State) finished second with 227.25 points.

We can go ahead and blame Team SEC's failure to win the Challenge on Tennessee, right?

The Florida Gators track and field team is in action tonight at the Texas A&M Challenge in College Station, Texas. The two-day meet begins tonight, at 7 p.m. and continues at 12 p.m. tomorrow. For those unfaimilar with the Texas A&M Challenge, it is set up as a conference meet in which team scoring will be decided on by conference.

Meaning the Gators will be paired up with the Tennessee Volunteers merely for scoring purposes. The other teams invited to the meet were Texas A&M (obviously) and Texas Tech from the Big 12, and Arizona State and Oregon from the Pac 12. The Gators are ranked No. 2 in the USTFCCCA poll, while Texas A&M is ranked No. 9 and Oregon is No. 19. The meet is being held at the Gilliam Indoor Stadium which was the site of the Gators' 2011 Indoor National Championship.

There are plenty of Gators in action this weekend:

Friday: Gray Horn (heptathlon events)

Saturday: Gray Horn (heptathlon events), Omar Craddock (long jump), David Levin, Jeremy Postin and David Triassi (weight throw), Dwight Barbiasz and Frankie Hammond Jr. (high jump), Kemal Mesic (shot put), Marquis Dendy (triple jump), Eddie Lovett and William Wynne (60m hurdles), Jimmy Clark, Josh Izewski and Matt Mizereck (3,000m run), Hugh Graham, Jr. (400m run), Luc Lawrence, Sean Obinwa and Daniel Wehunt (800m run), Leonardo Seymore (200m run), Tyler Cardillo, John Mitchell and Harsha Torke (mile run) and Hugh Graham, Tony McQuay, Jovon Toppin and Sean Obinwa (4x400m relay).

You can follow all the action live and online at FlashResults.com or at either GatorZone.com/trackfield or their official Twitter account @GZTrackField.

The Florida Gators track and field team backed up their dominate performance at the Alabama Invitational with another strong showing, this time at the 2012 Gator Invite. The Gators as a team, didn't enter as many events as possible and as a result were unable to flash their No. 1 ranking in back-to-back weeks.

Jeremy Postin, David Triassi and David Levin posted a 1-2-3 finish in the weight throw with distances of 21.31m, 20.06m and 16.77m respectively. In the long jump, Marquis Dendy brought home a first-place finish with a best distance 7.20m. That distance, came on the third attempt (out of five) in the finals. Dendy also finished third in the triple jump with a distance of 14.45m. That distance is well short of his 15.25m jump a week ago in Alabama.

Gray Horn continued his strong start to the season with a third-place finish in the pole vault with a final height of 4.76m. Other Gator finishers in the pole vault were, Kyle Mailoux (fifth-place) and Anthony Amodio (seventh-place).

In the shot put, Horn dominated yet again with a final distance of 16.40m, which was good enough for first-place. Hunter Joyer, in his first shot put action of the season, finished fifth with a distance of 14.67m. Not a bad start for Joyer considering this was the first meet of his collegiate career.

William Wynne finished sixth overall in the 55m hurdles with a time of 7.54 seconds. Wynne finished sixth last week in the 60m hurdles, so yeah, there might be a theme developing early. In the final action of the Gator Invite for the Gators, Michael Burris finished thirteenth in the 200m dash with a time of 22.91 seconds.

Next, the Gators travel to College Station, Texas for the 2012 Texas A&M Challenge. There the Gators should be at full force and look to get revenge on the Aggies for their victory over the Gators the last time the two teams met, at the NCAA Outdoor National Championship.

The Florida Gators track and field teams host the 2012 Gator Invite today, with events starting at 11:00am. Coming off an excellent showing at the Alabama Invitational last weekend, the Gators look to dominate the field (and track) yet again. The largely Florida colleges and universities only invite, pits the Gators against the likes of Embry-Riddle, FIU, Florida A&M, Georgia Southern and Jacksonville. It's been two years since the Gators last hosted an indoor track and field event, and the No. 1 ranked Gators look to keep that ranking intact.

The Gators will be entering about half the events, meaning there will be a lot of runners who will sit this meet out. Which is standard practice this early in the season and for these type of events in general.

Those in action for the Gators, as scheduled: David Levin and Jeremy Postin (weight throw), Marquis Dendy and Josh Pederson (long jump), Anthony Amodio, Gray Horn, Max Lang and Kyle Mailloux (pole vault), Ryan Summers (high jump), Eddie Lovett (hurdles), Gray Horn, Hunter Joyer and Stipe Zunic (shot put), Marquis Dendy (triple jump) and Michael Burris (200m).

Yes, that's right, you read that correctly. Hunter Joyer is on the track and field team.

You can follow all the action live and online at either GatorZone or Half-Mile Timing. The meet is scheduled to be completed at 7:00pm, and we'll have all the updates and information you'll need right here at Alligator Army.

While there was no team scoring at the 2012 Alabama Invitational in which the Florida Gators officially opened their defense of their 2011 NCAA Indoor Track and Field National Championship, the Gators performed very well. While the Gators clearly were missing a few key pieces (read: Demps and Hammond Jr.), it is becoming clear that the Gators are going to have a very strong team. Are they strong enough to back up their preseason No. 1 ranking? It's too soon to tell, but they got off to a good start.

Tyler Cardillo and John Mitchell lead the Gators charge in the track events finishing an outstanding 1-2 in the 800 meter run. Cardillo finished with a time of 1:51.50 and Mitchell was right behind him with a time of 1:151.54. Yeah, that's pretty much neck and neck. It's going to be interesting to see them battle throughout the year.

In the mile run, freshman Harsha Torke finished second with a run of 4:12.50. The winner of the mile run, Niklas Buhner from Alabama, was about six seconds ahead of Torke. While that's a pretty substantial distance, it was still a great run by Torke.

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