The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Texas Invitational
Women's sprinters roll to close Texas Invitational
04.14.2018 | Track & Field / Cross Country
Longhorns win four events to help win team title
Texas Invitational
Live Results | Complete Results | Texas Post-Meet Notes
AUSTIN, Texas – With high winds impacting many of the races, the Texas Track & Field team took advantage the most and came away with overall team victories at the Texas Invitational on Saturday. The women's team dominated the sprinting events on Saturday and the men's team scored big in the hurdles.
The women's team won the Texas Invitational with a total of 188.5 points over Big 12 rival Kansas State's 129.5. The Texas men tallied 115 points to win handily over the two days with Stephen F. Austin in second place at 75.5 points. K-State and Princeton were right behind the Lumberjacks with 75 points apiece.
Despite the high winds, Interim Head Coach Tonja Buford-Bailey said she was happy with the performances overall because the Longhorns were able to execute what they all had been working on in practice. If the times were not there because of the conditions, she knows the Longhorns will be ready to run fast when they need to.
"Overall, it was so windy this weekend, but we can't control that. The wind, I think, hampered the actual performances but we still were able to come out here and get what we needed to get done," Buford-Bailey said. "They weren't happy with their times because the kids are so obsessed about their marks. But we've got another race next week and one after that, so the times are going to come. We just executed some of the things we were working on, so that's the most important thing."
The women's 4x100 meter relay started the day off on the track for Texas with a bang, clocking 45.56 seconds for the win with the team of Pedrya Seymour, Teahna Daniels, Serenity Douglas and Rushelle Burton.
The men followed with a fourth-place finish of their own and a time of 40.49 from John Burt, Micaiah Harris, Terry Brown Jr. and Washington Brown.
After the relay teams got things moving on the track for Texas, It was time for the hurdlers to make their mark.
Seymour cruised to victory in the 100m hurdles with her wind-aided time of 13.16 seconds. Senior Ariel Jones was second in 13.55.
Then, the men scored big points from Burt and Medric Roberson. Roberson finished in second place running 14-flat. Burt was close behind him in fifth place and 14.29.
The women's sprinters then racked up more points in the 400m and 100m.
Zola Golden ran 52.93 to leave the competition behind and win the 400 and score 10 points. Daniels and Burton finished 3-4 in the 100, running 11.45 and 11.65 respectively. They combined for 18 points with a pair of post-collegiate runners finishing ahead of them not eligible for the scoring.
And in the 400m hurdles, it was Texas again raking in the points with Jones taking second just ahead of Mariam Abdul-Rashid. Lifetime Longhorn Melissa Gonzalez got the win in her post-collegiate training, so again the Longhorns pulled in big points from a sprints event to begin running away with the team win.
It wasn't just the sprinters that came up big for the Longhorns on Saturday.
Shay Petty tied as the top collegiate in the women's pole vault on Saturday. She battled the winds along with the rest of the field and cleared 4.01m (13-1.75) to score nine points for the women's team. On the men's side, Barrett Poth was the top collegiate for the men and also scored 10 points with his height of 5.20m (17-0.75).
Sophomore Elena Bruckner finished third in the women's discus with a throw of 52.37m (171-10).
To cap the meet off the women's 4x400 relay team ran away from the field and won with a time of 3:40.76. The team of Anne Sofie Kirkegaard, Golden, Douglas and Megan Rourke combined for that win. The men ran a strong race with the group of Kirema Macharia, T. Brown, W. Brown and Chris Ntreh finishing third in 3:14.84.
Perhaps the highlight of the meet didn't belong to the Longhorns but to the professional pole vaulters competing.
In the women's pole vault, 2012 Olympic Gold Medalist Jenn Suhr won with a height of 4.93m (16-2.00). That's a new personal best for Suhr and improves on her own Myers Stadium facility record and her world record for 35 years and older. It also is the world leading mark in 2018. Suhr attempted to break the American record with two unsuccessful jumps at 5.01m (16-5.25). She elected to not take her third attempt at the record jump.
The men's pole vault featured multiple Olympians and Renaud Lavillenie of France put on a show for the fans. He cleared 5.95m (19-6.25) to improve on his Myers Stadium record from two weeks ago at the Texas Relays. It also is the top mark in the world this year. He failed his three attempts at 6.01m.
Texas splits up for competition at four different meets next week. First off, a trio of multi-event athletes will go to the Bryan Clay Invitational to compete in the decathlon and heptathlon at Azusa Pacific. The distance crew will send a group to Bryan Clay as well as the Mt. SAC Relays just down the road from Bryan Clay. The bulk of the sprinters and jumpers will head to the LSU Alumni Gold while vaulters, throwers and a handful of other athletes go to Baylor for the Michael Johnson Invitational.
Coach Talk
Interim Head Coach Tonja Buford-Bailey
On the meet overall: James Barr and his staff did a great job with this meet. I just talked with the coaches from Houston, Texas State and Princeton. They all just had a great meet. They're really pleased with the results. They had a good time. They loved being here in Austin, so it was great and it turned out really well.
On distance runners and Sam Worley moving down to shorter distances: I think what it does is it gives them a little bit of confidence going with his time and working on his speed to when he really needs to run some good times in his preferred distance events.
On the wind during hurdle events: The 400 hurdlers said they felt the wind all the way around, so even if you look at the wind readings that come up with the sprinting events it's a little bit different if the winds are swirling. It makes it hard to run in. It's a learning experience but hopefully you don't have too many races where you have to deal with it, especially after you get later into the season. We're in spring time, this is what it is. Hopefully when you get into May and June, you don't have to experience it as much. You'll get a few tailwinds here and there, but it won't be this swirling spring winds.
