The Roadrunners traveled to Houston from April 19 to 20 to participate in the 16th annual J. Fred Duckett Twilight meet, hosted by Rice University. The ‘Runners had a very productive weekend, walking away with 15 top-three finishes between the men and women.
The men’s 4×400-relay team, composed of Chris Rosales, Vasha Sheriff, Luca Chatham and Andrew Pirog combined for a total time of three minutes and 14.08 seconds, which was enough to help secure a first place finish by less than a second. Sheriff continued his success by clocking a 46.94 second finish in the 400-meter to win his second gold medal of the meet.
Chatham raced in the 800-meter and was able to land a third-place finish with a time of 1:50.11, beating out Max Carmona from the University of Texas at Rio Grande Valley. Pirog raced in the 400-meter hurdles and claimed a silver medal with a time of 52.45 seconds, less than a second away from landing in second place.
Davante Edwards, Mikael Dawkins, Kaleb Campbell and Jared Taylor competed in the men’s 4×100-relay and placed second with a combined score of 40.67 seconds, outpacing the University of the Incarnate Word, Dallas Baptist and Rice.
On the women’s side, Olivia Esemena ran in the 200-meter dash and was able to place third after a total of six different heats raced with a time of 24.33 seconds. Darionne Gibson placed second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 55.16 seconds; Sierra Andres placed fifth with a time of 56.58 seconds.
Caroline Bellows was able to build off the success of her first place finish in the pole vault last week with another top-two finish. Bellows cleared 3.72-meter jump to land in second, .10 meters behind Rice’s Kylie Swiekatowski who claimed first.
Chase Whiting placed third in the javelin throw with a best of 37.40 meters, nearly passing up Houston Baptist’s Ana Kriletic.
Jamal Anderson and Edwards tied for second in the men’s high jump with a jump of 2.00 meters. The ‘Runners had two top-three finishers in the shot put with Steven Thomas and Micheal Zungia claiming second and third, respectively.
In the men’s javelin throw, Jacob McDaniel threw 53.25 meters to end the meet with a bronze medal finish.
The ‘Runners season will begin to wind down as they compete in College Station for the Alumni Muster on April 27 and in Houston for the Tom Tellez Invitational on May 3, before finally reaching the Conference USA (C-USA) Outdoor Championships in Charlotte.
