{"id":216745,"date":"2026-04-02T23:17:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216745\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T23:17:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:17:15","slug":"trio-of-eagles-flock-to-pepsi-florida-relays-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/216745\/","title":{"rendered":"Trio of Eagles flock to Pepsi Florida Relays on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n                    &#13;<br \/>\n                        Story Links&#13;<br \/>\n                        &#13;<br \/>\n    &#13;<br \/>\n&#13;<\/p>\n<p>                     FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 FGCU will have a trio of distance runners head to the prestigious Pepsi Florida Relays on Friday with all three ready to test their talents in the evening&#8217;s 5,000-meter races.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fgcuathletics.com\/sports\/mens-cross-country\/roster\/siyabonga-mokgothu\/10144\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"10144\" target=\"_blank\">Siyabonga Mokgothu<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/fgcuathletics.com\/sports\/mens-cross-country\/roster\/innocent-ntwali\/10247\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"10247\" target=\"_blank\">Innocent Ntwali<\/a> will compete on the men&#8217;s side at 8:45 p.m., while <a href=\"https:\/\/fgcuathletics.com\/sports\/womens-cross-country\/roster\/alise-petrova\/10237\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"10237\" target=\"_blank\">Alise Petrova<\/a> racing on the women&#8217;s side at 8:20 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Mokgothu heads to Gainesville for his second appearance at the Pepsi Relays. Last year, he registered a runner-up finish in the 3,000m steeplechase with a school-record time of 8:57.37. This will be his first 5K race in Gainesville, but it&#8217;s an event in which he has found significant success. He has one win and three top-10 finishes in the 5K in his career, and he posted the school&#8217;s second-best 5K time in program history earlier this season in Tampa, clocking 14:34.89.<\/p>\n<p>Ntwali will be making his first appearance in Gainesville. The Eagles junior has two top-10 finishes in the 5K over his career, including a third-place finish and season-best time of 14:38.92 recorded earlier this season in Tampa. He looks to top his career-best mark of 14:34.78 when he races Friday evening.<\/p>\n<p>Petrova already has a 5K win this year under her belt and six top-10 finishes in her career. Her personal best time of 17:07.19 came at USF on April 11, 2025, and her season-best time of 17:21.78 was raced at the University of Tampa on Mar. 13 earlier this year, where she finished third a week after winning the 5K on the same track with a mark of 17:26.73. She is making her second appearance at the Pepsi Florida Relays, having raced 17:28.96 in the 5K last year to place 11th.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nFOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nFor more information on the Eagles, follow FGCU Athletics on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/fgcuathletics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FGCUEagles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">X (Twitter)<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FGCUAthletics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a>, and visit <a href=\"https:\/\/fgcuathletics.com\/index.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">FGCUathletics.com<\/a>.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>                <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Story Links&#13; &#13; &#13; &#13; FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 FGCU will have a trio of distance runners&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-216745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}