The Texas State track and field team won nine gold medals, and the women’s team won the Sun Belt Conference after competing at the Sun Belt Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which were hosted at Glosecose Field in Monroe, Louisiana, from May 9-11.
Day One:
Setting the tone for the Bobcats early, sophomore thrower Elisabet Runarsdottir placed first while breaking the facility record in the women’s hammer throw with a 69.08-meter toss.
Freshman thrower Lara Roberts finished second behind Runarsdottir with a mark of 65.28 meters.
Qualifying for the finals in the women’s 1500-meter prelims, sophomore distance runner Abigail Parra placed third, clocking in a time of 4:35.95. Arkansas State’s Elizabeth Martin and Rahel Broemmel finished ahead of Parra.
Day Two:
Taking another gold in the men’s long jump, sophomore jumper Chris Preddie recorded a 7.73-meter jump, finishing 0.34 meters ahead of Louisiana-Monroe junior Algirdas Strelciunas.
Recording a facility record in the women’s shot put with a 16.67-meter toss, sophomore thrower Melanie Duron dominated her competition, finishing a half meter ahead of second place.
Finishing second overall in women’s shot put, senior thrower Lauryn Small recorded a 16.17-meter toss.
Sprinters Taejha Badal, Ma’Khi Falkquay and Kerris Roberts all qualified for the finals in the women’s 200-meter prelims.
Falkquay and Badal also qualified for the women’s 100-meter finals, placing third and fifth in the prelim round.
Sprinters Dominick Yancy, Shawn Collins, and Shedrack Akpeki qualified for the final round by claiming first, second, and ninth places in the men’s 200-meter prelims, respectively.
Moving on to the finals in the women’s 100-meter hurdles, graduate student sprinter Ayesha Nelson clocked a time of 14.01 seconds.
Graduate student sprinter Daniel Harrold set a new meet and facility record in the men’s 110-meter hurdle prelims, running a first-place time of 13.67 seconds.
Middle-distance runner Ka’Bren Mitchell qualified for the finals in the men’s 800-meter prelims, placing third with a time of 1:52.58.
Three Bobcat sprinters qualified for the finals in the men’s 400-meter prelims in Brian West II, Taahir Kelly and Kashawn Baptiste.
Day Three:
With a personal best triple jump of 15.61 meters, Preddie won his second gold medal of the meet.
Breaking both the meet and facility record in women’s discus, sophomore thrower Utitofon Sam took first place with a toss of 54.76 meters.
In the women’s 1500-meter finals, Parra’s second-place time of 4:28.84 finished just under a second behind Marshall senior Kylee Mastin’s 4:27.91 time.
Setting a new meet, facility and personal record in the men’s 110-meter hurdle finals, Harrold ran an incredible 13.45 seconds to place first overall.
Collins narrowly defeated Southern Miss. freshman Kingsley Unorji for first place in the men’s 100-meter final, finishing one-hundredth of a second faster with a time of 10.27 seconds.
Winning gold in the men’s 200-meter final by setting a facility record, Yancy clocked in a 20.48-second time. Collins placed second behind Yancy with a 20.57-second run.
The men’s 4×400 meter relay team consisting of Yancy, Collins, Baptiste and Kelly won gold by over one and a half seconds, recording a time of 3:06.91.
The next scheduled meet for select Texas State athletes is the NCAA West Preliminaries, which will be held in Fayetteville, Arkansas, from May 22-25.
