The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
NCAA Outdoor Championships
Men’s Track and Field ties for sixth at NCAA Outdoor Championships
06.11.2021 | Track & Field / Cross Country
The Longhorns scored 29 points to post their highest NCAA Outdoor finish since 2013.
EUGENE, Ore. – The Texas Men's Track and Field team finished the 2021 NCAA Outdoor Championships with 29 points, tied for sixth place, at Hayward Field on Friday. It is the program's highest finish, and highest scoring output, at the NCAA Outdoor meet since also placing sixth with 32 points in 2013.
The Longhorns opened the final night of men's competition with a sixth-place effort in the 4x100-meter relay. Texas ran out the quartet of O'Brien Wasome, Steffin McCarter, Caleb Hulbin and Micaiah Harris for the event, and the group responded by running the race in 39.13 – the ninth-fastest time on UT record.
Texas later added two points from freshman Yusuf Bizimana in the 800-meter final, as the Englishman clocked 1:46.76 – the fastest time of his collegiate career – to place seventh in a stacked field. His time solidified his standing as the fourth-best performer in school history and was the seventh-fastest time on UT record. Crayton Carrozza also clocked his personal-best in the final, running the race in 1:46.94 to also solidify his spot as the No. 6 performer in Texas history. His time ranks as the 10th-fastest by a Longhorn all time.
The Longhorns' biggest scoring chunk came from Micaiah Harris, who logged five points with a fourth-place finish in the 200-meter dash. Harris, a Virginia Beach, Va. native, clocked 20.26 in the race to record the sixth-fastest time in school history. He is responsible for all six of those times, including a school-record 20.09 he ran at the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Austin two seasons ago.
Charles Brockman III and O'Brien Wasome contributed the final two points – one apiece – in the 400-meter hurdles and triple jump, respectively. Brockman ran his race in 49.92, while Wasome jumped 16.35m/53-7.75, to finish in eighth place.
Entering Friday's final day of men's competition, the Longhorns had tallied 17 points across three events.
Tripp Piperi was Texas' biggest scorer of opening day on Wednesday, tallying eight points behind a second-place effort in the shot put. Piperi, the 2019 NCAA Outdoor champion, threw the shot a season-best 20.71m/67-11.5 to cap an incredible comeback from injury. The Woodlands, Texas native missed two months of action due to an ankle injury he suffered prior to the NCAA Indoor Championships, and returned to competition just one month ago at the Big 12 Championships in Manhattan, Kan.
Steffin McCarter posted Texas' other four points on Wednesday, doing so with a fifth-place mark in the long jump. McCarter jumped 7.84m/25-8.75 to score at the NCAA Outdoor Championships for the first time in his career. A finalist at the World Championships in 2019, McCarter concludes his Texas career as one of only three Longhorns to break the 27-foot barrier in the long jump outdoors.
Rounding out the UT men's scoring efforts was a five-point performance from Leo Neugebauer, who placed fourth in the decathlon with 7,697 points in the 10-event competition.
Neugebauer scored 3,592 points in the final five events on Thursday. He opened the day by tallying 833 points with a time of 15.14 in the 110-meter hurdles. Following that was an 824-point performance in the discus throw, where his best effort flew 47.77/156-8. Neugebauer added 822 points in the pole vault (4.71m/15-5.5) and 503 points in the javelin (44.16m/144-10) before closing out the decathlon with a personal-best 4:51.45 (610 pts) in the 1,500-meter run.
On Wednesday, the German international opened the decathlon with an 830-point effort in the 100-meter dash, clocking 11.14 into a -0.6 headwind. He followed it by scoring 847 points in the long jump (7.14m/23-5.25) and a 799-point throw in the shot put (15.15m/49-8.5). His marks in the first three competition helped him climb into the top five of the leaderboard, going from 15th to 11th to fifth.
Neugebauer added a personal-best clearance of 2.04m/6-8.25 in the high jump to score another 840 points. He closed out the decathlon's opening day by clocking a 50.56 in the 400-meter dash, adding another 789 points to his score.
In women's heptathlon action, freshman Kristine Blazevica stands in sixth place with a lifetime-best score of 3,501 after four events.
She opened the competition by scoring 987 points with a time of 13.94 in the 100-meter hurdles before personal-best marks in the high jump and shot put competitions. Blazevica first cleared the high jump bar at 1.75m/5-8.75 to register 916 points, then launched the three longest throws of her career in the shot put. Her best mark of 13.21m/43-4.25 scored 741 points. In the 200-meter dash, the day's final event, she clocked 25.33 running into a headwind and scored 857 points.
The Texas women return to the stage to close out the 2021 NCAA Outdoor Championships on Saturday at Hayward Field. UT has six entries in finals or scheduled to compete on Saturday, with action scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. CT tomorrow.
NCAA Outdoor National Champions
Women's Long Jump: Tara Davis
NCAA Outdoor Championships Scorers
Women's Long Jump: Tara Davis (10 pts / 1st place)
Men's 200m: Micaiah Harris (5 pts / 4th place)
Men's 800m: Yusuf Bizimana (2 pts / 7th place)
Men's 400mH: Charles Brockman III (1 pt / 8th place)
Men's 4x100m: Wasome-McCarter-Hulbin-Harris (3 pts / 6th place)
Men's Long Jump: Steffin McCarter (4 pts / 5th place)
Men's Triple Jump: O'Brien Wasome (1 pt / 8th place)
Men's Shot Put: Tripp Piperi (8 pts / 2nd place)
Men's Decathlon: Leo Neugebauer (5 pts / 4th place)
Players Mentioned
