Feb. 26, 2010
ARLINGTON, Texas - An exciting first day of the Southland Conference Indoor track and field championships produced one champion for UT Arlington and both Maverick teams have a chance for a number of individual titles on championship Saturday at the Mosier Track at the University of Oklahoma.
UTA's men's team trails only UTSA while the women's team is in sixth after day one. Although the women are in sixth, head coach John Sauerhage believes they have a great chance to win.
"The women are poised to win the event tomorrow," Sauerhage said. "We should have a great day tomorrow and make a run at the title."
Wade Hayes' dominance in the pole vault continued as he won the competition for the third consecutive season with a season-best vault of 16-2 ¾ (4.95m). It was the fourth indoor pole vault win by a Maverick in the last five years.
Adolphus Jones continued to show why he is the athlete to beat in the heptathlon as he leads through the first four events with a score of 3,140 points. Jones won the event's high jump, setting the meet record with a clearance of 6-9 (2.06m). Earlier in the day he placed second in the meet's high jump with a clearance of 6-8 ¾ (2.05m).
Jasmine Walls and Shannon Reynolds each posted career best times in the 60 meters as they took first and second place in the preliminaries with times of 7.55 and 7.58 respectively.
In the 200 meter prelims, Walls finished first with a season best time of 42.76 while Antonia Hopkins ran a season best 24.98 to place second behind Walls.
Other Maverick women to win in the prelims included DeAndrea Smith in the 400 with a season best time of 56.91 and Kisha Gaspard in the 800 meters with a time of 2:16.60.
The women should have a great day tomorrow in the 400 and 800 meter runs. They will have four and five athletes in the finals in the events, respectively.
The women's distance medley finished second with a time of 12:16.65.
Besides Hayes' win and Jones off to a fast start in his events, head coach John
Sauerhage got great performances from Cordero Gray and Dwight Robinson.
Gray ran a 6.76 in the 60 meter dash to finish second in the prelims while Robinson finished first in the 800 meters with a time of 1:53.43. Renan Palma finished third in the prelims in the 60 meter hurdles with a season best time of 8.15.
The men's distance medley team finished third with a time of 10:12.53.
The meet resumes Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. with the heptathlon. Field events begin at 11 a.m. and the running-event finals get underway at 1 p.m.
The remainder of the meet will resume on Saturday, including the finals and the award ceremony.
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