The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Texas Invitational
Men's Track and Field registers five regional qualifiers to open the outdoor season
03.22.2008 | Track & Field / Cross Country m, Track & Field / Cross Country
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AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas used its home-track advantage to produce five NCAA Midwest Region qualifiers on the opening day of the Longhorns' outdoor season.
Seniors Darren Brown, Joel Hargett and Hamza Deyaf, junior Raymond Harris and Houston native and UT freshman Maston Wallace met the NCAA regional standard at the Texas Invitational on Saturday afternoon at Mike A. Myers Track and Soccer Stadium.
Brown (Spring, Texas), a two-time All-American, clocked a personal-best mark of eight minutes, 55.70 seconds in the opening men's race of the day. The time is nearly 12 seconds faster than the region mark of 9:07.00.
Deyaf (Richardson, Texas), a returning All-American quarter-mile hurdler, cruised to the win in the 400-meter hurdles in 51.86.
Hargett (Conroe, Texas) and Harris (Nacogdoches, Texas) started the outdoor season in the same fashion as the indoor season - meet the NCAA standard in their first meet of the 2008 campaign. Hargett won the high jump after clearing 7-0.25 (2.15m) while Harris finished second in equaling the region mark of 6-10.75 (2.10m).
Wallace, coming off an All-American third-place finish at indoor nationals, met the pole vault region mark of 16-7 (5.05m) with a winning height of 17-6.5 (5.35m). He set a new personal best mark and tied Chad Perry for seventh on the all-time performers' list.
Freshman All-American Danzell Fortson (Fort Worth, Texas) and rookie Andre Thomas (St. Peters, Mo.) finished third and fourth, respectively, in the 400-meter dash. Fortson clocked 47.30 while Thomas was timed at 48.32. The duo also finished back-to-back in the 200, with Fortson in fifth (21.86 seconds) and Thomas in sixth (22.06).
Thomas returned as the leadoff leg of the 4x400-meter relay that clocked 3:11.91. Deyaf ran the second stanza ahead of junior transfer Tevan Everett (Bel-Aire, Kan.), who started his first outdoor season at UT after running the 800-meter leg of the national champion indoor distance-medley relay. Fortson, a member of the world-record setting and NCAA champion DMRs, anchored the 1,600-meter quartet to the second-place finish.
Spring, Texas native Erik Stanley won the 1,500-meter in 3:50.29.
The Longhorns split the team, taking one group to the 2008 Tiger Relays in Baton Rouge, La., and the other members to the 2008 Bayou Classic in Houston. Both meets are scheduled from Friday-Saturday, March 28-29.
