Coming off a seven-medal performance at the Aggie Invitational last week, the UTSA track and field team was back in action this past weekend for the Houston Invitational. Displaying consistency, the ‘Runners won seven medals for the third consecutive week, with highlights including Sam Healy’s second win of the season in the men’s long jump and the women’s distance medley relay team of Maddy Blair, Maddie Boswell, Chante Dixon and Brooke Lomax bringing home the gold in that event. 

Starting on the women’s side, the team saw a solid performance in the field events and also saw some standout performances on the track. In the women’s 400 meters, Marie Duvigneau came home in fifth place with a time of 56.43, just one-tenth of a second behind the University of Houston’s Iman Babineaux. However, Duvigneau was third in the event among all collegiate runners. In the women’s long jump, Oreoluwa Adamson leapt 5.82 meters to win the gold medal over Parl Eelma from Lamar University. Adamson and Eelma each recorded the longest jump of 5.82 meters, but Adamson’s next longest jump was further than Eelma’s, giving Adamson the gold medal via tiebreaker. The women’s weight throw added another medal to UTSA’s tally. Acacia Astwood secured a bronze medal with a throw of 17.98 meters, .45 meters behind Phylan Perkins from Texas Southern for second place. 

In the women’s 5000 meters, UTSA’s Lily Morill just missed out on a podium, finishing in fourth place nine seconds behind Prairie View’s Naomi Davis for third. The women’s high jump featured another close call as UTSA fell short of the podium when the pair of Sigrid Kleive and Maren Wilms came in fourth and fifth, respectively, each with a jump of 1.60 meters. This was just .05 meters short of the bronze medal-winning jump of UTRGV’s Aviana Goode. Already with one gold medal to her name, Adamson came back in the women’s triple jump and added a silver medal to go alongside it. Adamson’s longest jump of 12.30 meters was enough to comfortably slot her into second place, .21 meters behind the University of Houston’s Destiny Lawrence for the gold medal. Finally, the women’s distance medley team of Blair, Boswell, Dixon and Lomax won a thrilling race, winning the gold medal with a time of 12:17.10 and just edging out the University of Houston by 0.61 seconds. 

The Roadrunners had a few solid results on the men’s side of things. Bashiru Abdullahi sprinted his way to a bronze medal in the men’s 60-meter hurdles with a final time of 7.90 seconds. He was just edged out at the line by Houston’s DJ Adkindele, who took the silver with a time of 7.87. Abdullahi and Akindele both finished behind Jeff Julmis, a non-collegiate runner who won the event in 7.83 seconds. In the men’s long jump, Healy picked up the men’s lone gold medal of the meet with a winning jump of 7.60 meters, cruising to victory by .16 meters over a tie for second place. In the men’s 200-meter dash, Diego Pettorossi sprinted his way to a bronze medal with a final time of 21.54 seconds, managing to beat out Houston’s Tyrell Valentine by .09 seconds. Finally, in the men’s distance medley relay, the team of Victor Charo, JD Corona, Daniel Morales and Michael Paredes just missed out on a podium spot, finishing in fourth place with a final time of 10:26.94. 

The indoor season continues to roll on for the Roadrunners and they’ll head back to College Station next week to take part in the Charlie Thomas Invitational from Feb. 4-5.