Neal & Richards Duel It Out In Hurdles At Hernando Invite

In Wednesday's Hernando Kiwanis Invitational, two of Florida's top tier hurdlers duked it out in both the 110 and 300-meter hurdles between Zephyrhills junior Maguire Neal and Weeki Wachee senior David Richards.

In both races, Richards got the better start on Neal. In one race, fairly and another race, unfairly.

However, each head-to-head matchup saw Neal close the gap and come on at the end for the victory.

In the 110 meter hurdles, both athletes closed significant personal bests to move up into the statewide top 10 rankings list. Neal was able to pull even with in the last few hurdles sets with the fast-starting Richards and edge him out with a FL #7 ranked time of 14.51 to Richards as the runner-up with a FL #8 time of 14.59.

Later in the 300-meter hurdles was a little bit of controversy as Richards clearly jumped the gun and should have been called for a false start, but the starter missed it and did not call the race back. The race was run as Richards and Neal kept going.

Coming off the final turn, Richards still held the advantage but Neal once again was able to close to regain first place with a narrow victory and time of 39.35 over Richards at 39.49. Neither time was a season-best for either hurdler both ranked among the top 6 fastest currently in the state, but a thrilling and interesting race to say the least.

It was not first and certainly will not be the last these talented hurdlers face off to push each other to great times this season.

It was a big day overall for Neal who won a third individual race earlier in the meet breaking 11 seconds for the first time in the 100 meter dash with a 10.94 clocking. Neal also ran a key second leg on the Zephyrhills 4x400 meter relay at meet's end to break the race open for his squad en route to a 3:32.11 win.