Texas A&M women place fourth in the final day of the 2019 NCAA Outdoor National Championships behind the 4×400 relay team’s school-record breaking outing.
In the NCAA women’s 4×400 relay final, the women’s team produced another historic performance for A&M, breaking another school-record and solidifying all-time status.
The four-woman team of Tierra Robinson-Jones, Jaevin Reed, Jazmine Fray and Syaira Richardson combined on Saturday for a time of 3:25.57 to take home the gold medal. With their time in the 4×400, the A&M women remain the sixth-fastest school in the event on the collegiate all-time list.
Richardson said the win didn’t come easy due to the high-level of competition at the championships.
“It’s mentally tough and knowing this level of competition every anchor is an elite 400m runner,” Richardson told 12thman.com. “It could have been anyone’s race. This was the first time we ran this group together. Everyone executed their leg and ended up the way it was supposed to be.”
Ciynamon Stevenson took part in the NCAA triple-jump final, and her attempt of 43-10 (13.36) propelled her to finish in sixth. LaJarvia Brown finished 19th overall after her attempt of 42-4 (12.90).
In the NCAA 400m final, Richardson’s run of 51.98 qualified her to finish seventh overall for A&M.
Fray, the collegiate leader in the 800m, took home gold in this event — adding another medal to her 4×400 relay gold. Fray cruised to the gold medal behind her facility and collegiate leading time of 2:01.31.
“I felt Nia coming up on me and I thought that was good, because she was going to push me to go,” Fray told 12thman.com. “I was trying to make it less stressful as possible, not to panic… it turned out well.”
Tyra Gittens entered Saturday with 3,872 points, and had another action-filled day as she finished the NCAA heptathlon with the most points scored by an A&M athlete ever.
She started out her day in the long-jump, and ended the event with a jump of 20-8 ½ (6.31) on her last attempt. In the next event, Gittens finished in a tie for 16th place with a 5-8 ¾ (1.75) clearance.
In the last event of the heptathlon, Gittens finished running in the 800m with a 2:29.99 to finish with a school-record 6,049 points. After two days in the event, Gittens earned a silver medal for her performance.
“She’s turning into a competitor,” A&M head coach Pat Henry told 12thman.com. “I was little worried for her going into that last run at 800, but she held on for second and had a great score.”
The Aggie women finished the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships scoring 38 total points to finish in fourth.