Gold Nuggets 23rd in best-ever finish at nationals

GULF SHORES, Ala. — Xavier University of Louisiana women's track and field, led by multiple All-Americans Shalysa Wray and Ariel Ford, produced its best team finish ever Saturday at the NAIA National Outdoor Championships.
     
The Gold Nuggets, in Yhann Plummer's first season as head coach, scored 13 points to tie for 23rd place out of 106 teams. Their previous best finish was 25th with nine points in 2014.
     
Seven Gold Nuggets earned All-America awards by virtue of top-8 finishes in individual events or relays. Wray scored in four events, including two relays. Ford scored in two events, including a relay.
     
Also earning All-America were Alexis Milton — a senior competing for the final time collegiately — Ky'Reon McBride, Justyce Riggs, Ry-Anne Riley and Alexis Williams. Wray, Ford and Williams are freshmen.
     
How the Nuggets scored their points, in order:
     •  Three points on a sixth-place finish in the 400 relay. Riggs, Ford, Milton and Wray produced a time of 47.01 seconds.
     •  Wray ran the 100 in 11.77 to finish fifth and score four points. It was the same time that Wray produced Friday during preliminaries,
     •  Ford ran the 400 in 56.33 to finish eighth and score one point.
     •  Another fifth for Wray, this time in the 200 (24.12) for four points. Wray was a hundredth of a second from equaling the XULA record she broke Thursday during prelims.
     •  The 1,600 relay team of Wray, McBride, Riley and Williams scored the final point by placing eighth in 3:53.59.
     
It was the first time that the Gold Nuggets scored points at nationals in the 400 relay, 100 and 200. It was the third time in four years that XULA produced an All-America finish in the 1,600 relay.
     
Wray and Ford became the second and third Gold Nuggets to earn All-America in more than one event during the same year. Ariane Williams did it in 2017.
     
Women's track and field joined women's basketball (24th), women's tennis (third) and men's tennis (second) as XULA teams that finished in the final top 25 during the 2018-19 academic year.
     
XULA's only male competitor Saturday was Brandon Matthews, who placed 25th in the triple jump with a best mark of 13.60 meters/44 feet, 7 1/2 inches. The Gold Rush did not score and tied for 78th place out of 120 teams.
     
This was XULA's final athletic competition of 2018-19. Volleyball will lead off the 2019-20 academic year in mid-August.

Ed Cassiere, Assistant Athletics Director for Communications
Department of Athletics & Recreation
XAVIER UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA 
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