Traveling to the Park West Athletics Complex in San Antonio on March 21-22, the Aggies kicked off the outdoor season with a bang, winning four events on Friday and 14 events on Saturday out of the total 31 entered events.
After a strong finish at the NCAA Indoor Championships last weekend, where the men finished 10th and the women finished seventh, the Aggies made a powerful start in the race to Eugene for the NCAA Outdoor Championship in June. A&M competed against UTSA, East Texas A&M, Incarnate Word, North Dakota State, Our Lady on the Lake, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M-Kingsville at the UTSA Invitational.
On the final day of the meet, the 4×400 meter relays wrapped up the Invitational with junior Demarco Escobar, junior Eric Hemphill III, freshman Musa Isah and senior Bryce McCray taking first in 3:08.99 for the team’s 18th title of the weekend. The men won the 2024 NCAA championship title in this event with a different relay squad than last time around. The women’s team of redshirt senior Jaydan Wood, freshman Yierra Flemings, junior Leeah Burr and freshman Tyler Lowe took the runner-up spot on Saturday in 3:41.42.
Sprint relays also opened on Saturday, with the women’s team claiming the first track win of the day in the 4x100m. Senior Bria Bullard, junior Jaiya Covington, junior Camryn Dickson and senior Jasmine Montgomery claimed the top spot in 43.43.
Sophomore Jasmine Harmon kept the momentum rolling on the women’s side, crossing the finish line first in the 100m hurdles in 13.53 and making her mark in her first race of the year. On the men’s side, McCray and senior Ja’Qualon Scott took second and third with marks of 51.51 and 53.12, respectively, in the 400m hurdles to close out the hurdle events.
On the field, the wins began Friday in the women’s javelin throw. Sophomore McKenzie Fairchild threw the farthest mark in the event on her sixth attempt, landing at 48.05 meters. Junior Ana De La Garza and senior Madison Murray took the third and fourth spots with throws of 43.47 meters and 40.58 meters, respectively.
Senior Heather Abadie in pole vault, sophomore Abigail Martin in discus throw and sophomore Jaden Harris in men’s triple jump all claimed the final three field event wins on the second day.
Abadie cleared 4.10 meters in her final attempt at the height to win the women’s pole vault. Senior Riley Floerke and junior Ava Richie followed in third and fifth place with vaults clearing 3.95 meters and 3.50 meters, respectively.
Martin threw her discus 57.16 meters on her first attempt to win the women’s discus throw event, and her teammate sophomore Carlie Weiser’s discus landed at 51.47 meters on her second attempt for a runner-up finish.
The final field event of the weekend saw a top-two finish in the men’s triple jump for A&M. Harris leapt 15.66 meters on his second attempt for the win, while freshman Jaydon Shield found his farthest mark on his fourth attempt at 15.56 meters to finish second.
An Aggie got his first-ever event win in the men’s 100m to add another top finish to the weekend sweep. Freshman Ernest Campbell crossed the finish line first in 10.28, and senior Isaiah Teer followed directly behind in 10.34 to finish second. Dickson doubled her wins on the day in the women’s 100m dash with an 11.06 mark for first, mirroring the men’s team with a top-two finish as her teammate sophomore Elnita Green crossed in 11.47 seconds for second place.
The women in maroon earned their final sprint title in the 400m with a 1-2-3 finish. Wood crossed first in 53.43, senior Kennedy Wade came up second in 53.60 and Lowe in third with a 54.46 mark.
The remaining six titles came from the distance teams, split evenly each day of the meet.
Freshman Penelope Gracey and sophomore Aiden Gonzalez-Rodiles each won the women’s and men’s 5000m in 17:17.40 and 14:58.34, respectively. The last distance title of the first day went to freshman Staucie Lees in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, crossing the finish line in 10:54.42.
The middle-distance events clenched the final three wins for the men and women in the 800m and the men’s 1500m.
Sophomore Ondrej Gajdos took the men’s 800m title in 1:50.76, and the women’s title was claimed by freshman Debora Cherono in 2:09.35 for her first outdoor win.
Junior Victor Kibiego made his return to outdoors after missing last season, claiming the final win in the men’s 1500m with a 3:51.25 mark.
The Aggies will travel with two teams on March 28-29, one to Bernie Moore Track Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana for Battle on the Bayou, the other, a relay squad to Paul Derr Track in Raleigh, North Carolina, for the Raleigh Relays.
