May 12, 2006
Texas-Arlington will host the 2006 Southland Conference men's and women's outdoor track and field championships May 13-15 at Maverick Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Competition begins Saturday at 10 a.m. with the men's 100-meter dash portion of the decathlon, followed by the women's heptathlon 100-meter hurdles at 10:30.
Saturday's field events begin at 10 a.m. with the women's javelin throw being contested first. Distance runners will attempt to beat the heat with 8:30 and 9:15 p.m. starts in the women's and men's 10,000-meter runs, respectively.
Competition will resume on Sunday at 9 a.m. with the multi events. Field events will resume at 1 p.m. and preliminary running events beginning at 5 p.m.
Monday's finals begin with field events at 1 p.m., followed by running event finals at 5 p.m.
Last year, Sam Houston State swept the men's and women's team titles. It marked the second year in a row for a school to sweep after Texas State pulled the double in 2004. Good news for Texas-Arlington is that Texas State hosted the event in 2004 while SHSU used the home track advantage to take home trophies in 2005.
At this year's SLC Indoor Championships, Texas-San Antonio came out on top in the men's competition while Stephen F. Austin won the women's. SHSU finished second in both division at the Feb. 17-18 competition which took place in Houston. The races were close as the women finished second to SFA by just 1.33 (105.33-104) points and the men were 6.67 (111-103.33) behind UTSA.
Texas-Arlington's Jared Connaughton is expected to be one of the top participants. The junior from Charlottetown, Canada, was the top point scorer at the SLC Indoor Championships, scoring 18 for the fourth-place Mavs. He won the 200-meter dash in a meet-record time of 21.57 and finished second in the 60-meter dash. Despite not winning the 60, Connaughton established a meet record in the event with a 6.68 clocking before timing a 6.85 in the finals to finish second to Northwestern State's Ravyn Hayward (6.80). For his efforts, Connaughton was voted the SLC Athlete of the Year by the league's head coaches.
--www.southland.org--
