Texas A&M’s Lamara Distin broke the Clemson Indoor Track facility record with a jump of 1.97 meters for a new No. 1 high jump rank in the nation and third in the world on Feb. 10 at the Tiger Paw Invitational.
A&M track and field continued to impress with new personal and facility records as the squad split for two meets on Feb. 9-10 with sprint, mid-distance and field heading to Clemson, South Carolina, while distance competed at the David Hemery Valentine Invitational at Boston University in Massachusetts.
At Clemson, sophomore Ja’Qualon Scott finished second in the men’s 60-meter hurdles with a time of 7.68 seconds in the final, moving him to No. 2 on the A&M all-time performance list.
Other Day 1 results included junior Heather Abadie finishing second in the women’s pole vault with a jump of 4.35 meters, while senior Jermaisha Arnold finished second in the women’s 400-meter with a time of 51.75.
“I thought our hurdle group continued to show that they can compete with anyone in the nation,” coach Pat Henry said. “Our entire 400m group, I thought, ran well and all nearly had season or personal bests. Then Heather [Abadie] in the pole vault did a really good job on clearing big vaults on her third attempt, which is an important skill to learn.”
On Day 2, sophomore Bailey Goggans placed second in the women’s 800-meter with a personal best of 2:02.98, while junior Sam Whitmarsh and junior Kimar Farquharson finished second and third with times of 1:47.18 and 1:48.22, respectively.
A&M continued strong performances in the 4×400-meter relay as both men’s and women’s teams lowered their nationally-ranked times. Now boasting the seventh-best time in the nation, the women’s group of sophomore Camryn Dickson, junior Jaydan Wood, junior Kennedy Wade and senior Jermaisha Arnold finished second in the event in 3:29.58 for No. 7 on the A&M all-time performers list.
The men logged the fifth-fastest time in the country to place second at 3:03.81 with the squad of junior Auhmad Robinson, senior Jevon O’Bryant, Scott and Farquharson, good for No. 11 in A&M history.
Other standouts on the day included Ushan Perera with second in the men’s high jump with a leap of 2.15m. Jack Mann III placed third in the men’s pole vault with a season-best clearance of 5.28m.
In the David Hemery Valentine Invitational, freshmen Madison Brown and Kennedy Fontenot both set personal records in the women’s 5,000-meter with Brown finishing sixth on the all-time performers list with a time of 16:20.39 and Fontenot finishing 12th all-time in 16:35.0 on Day 1.
In Day 2 action, junior Victor Kibiego and senior Jonathan Chung both set all-time performances in the men’s 5,000-meter with Kibiego finishing 59th out of 125 with a time of 13:55.42 and Chung finishing 16th out of 77 in the men’s 5,000m unseeded with a time of 14:13.87.
“I’m really proud of how our guys performed today in the 5,000m,” assistant coach Wendel McRaven said. “Victor [Kibiego] keeps getting fitter and it’s nice for him to get a personal best today and move into our all-time list. Jonathan [Chung] also had a great day, I thought he raced really maturely and aggressively.”
Senior Eric Casarez also ran the sixth-best time in school history, finishing 28th out of 145 in the men’s 3,000-meter with a time of 7:59.70.
“Eric has bounced back really well from being out of commission these past couple of weeks,” McRaven said. “He’s starting to round into form, this was his first 3,000m of the year and the second-fastest time of his career, so we will take that.”
Henry coached at the Tiger Paw Invitational and said he was impressed with how well the men’s and women’s teams performed.
“Overall, I thought our team performed very well at the Invitational,” Henry said. “We continued to get better in a lot of the areas, which is important as we progress towards the conference and national meets.”
McRaven oversaw the David Hemery Valentine Invitational and said he liked how competitive the Aggies were.
“We come to a meet like this to race people we don’t usually see,” McRaven said. “And we can compete against the best in the nation, and I thought that brought the best out of our group.”
The A&M track and field team will travel to the University of Arkansas on Saturday, Feb. 17 for the Arkansas Qualifier meet at the Randal Tyson Track Center.
Youngchan Kang is a journalism sophomore and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.
