After claiming a pair of first place finishes at the Big 12 Indoor Championships last season, the Texas A&M mens and womens indoor track team each took home a third place finish from the SEC Championship this weekend in Fayetteville.
The men totaled 88.5 points throughout the meet, coming behind Arkansas with 152.5 and Florida with 117. The Arkansas women claimed an SEC title of their own, scoring 116.5 points, while the Aggie women fell short with 88 points.
The men were led by senior Henry Lelei who claimed the Cliff Harper trophy for the meets top point scorer. Lelei finished with 22 points after helping his relay team place second in the distance medley while individually winning the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter. Lelei set a school record for his performance in the 5,000-meter with a time of 13:54.33.
Its great to score that many points for the team and win athlete of the meet honors, Lelei said. This is my last indoor season with A&M, so I had to do everything I could to help score points for the team.
The women were led by LaQue Moen-Davis, who took home the lone gold medal for the womens team. Moen-Davis topped the triple jump field with a career-best jump of 44 feet, two inches. Brea Garrett started off the last day of the meet for the Aggie women by placing second in the weight throw with a distance of 65 feet, 11.5 inches, a mere four feet away from first place.
I really like the way we competed, A&M head coach Pat Henry said. We had five, maybe six schools records broken this weekend.
Deon Lendore turned in a solid outing for the Aggie mens team. Lendore placed first in the 400-meter with a time of 45.23 seconds, the second-fastest time in school history. He also helped the 4x400m relay team to gold as they finished with a time of 3:04.18, breaking an SEC Championship record and setting the current world-leading time.
The Aggies also claimed a pair of silver medals from both the mens and womens 60-meter hurdles. For the men, Wayne Davis II topped his career best mark with a time of 7.65 seconds, placing behind the defending SEC 60-meter hurdle champion, Eddie Lovett from Florida. Donique Flemings turned in a season best time of 8.20 seconds for the women while claiming her second place finish.
Jenna Hemann and Annie Kunz placed third and fifth respectively in the pentathlon for the women and combined to score 10 points for their team.
Our athletes competed real well, Henry said. Its a positive step going forward.
The next step for the Aggies will be the NCAA Indoor Championships that will, like the SEC Championships, take place in Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They will look to continue their winning ways as they proceed through their historic inaugural season in the SEC.