The Texas A&M No. 2 men’s and No. 5 women’s track and field teams walked away with all of the easter eggs in their second outdoor meet of the season.
A&M met with several in-state rivals that included Baylor, Texas State, TCU and invitational host UTSA in the 2016 Ricardo Romo Invitational Thursday. Both teams were able to take commanding leads in the meet to eventually take first place in the San Antonio event.
Robert Grant rounded out the Aggies performance by capturing a personal-best 50.21 in a photo finish against UTSA’s Jurmarcus Shelvin in the 400 meter hurdles. Both of the runners now share the national collegiate record this season based on the performance Saturday. This avenges Grant’s loss to Shelvin earlier this season in indoors competition.
“I’ve known Jurmarcus for a couple of years now,” said Grant via 12thman.com. “…It’s always nice to go to someone else’s home track and win, especially when it’s against a great competitor.”
Grant and Shelvin weren’t the only ones to set a record for this season. Shelbi Vaughan finished first in the discus throw competition based off of her fourth throw which cemented another record for the outdoor season. Despite fouling on her final attempt, she crushed the second place best score of the event 59.25 meter throw over a second place 50.78 meter attempt.
“I worked really hard this past week,” Vaughan told to 12thman.com. “I was not very satisfied with last weekend [at the Baldy Castillo Invitational], since 180-2 is not a very good throw for me period. Even back in my senior year of highschool I wouldn’t have been very satisfied with that being a season opener.”
Shaina Burns competed in the heptathlon where she was able to take first over UTSA’s Gabby Torres. After both shared victories on individual events, she pulled away in the final three events on the second day of their competition. Burns captured first place finishes in the 100 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, javelin throw and the 800 meter run to take the heptathlon event.
Several Aggies finished in first place for the men’s team including Ben Zook in the 110 meter hurdles, Rodney Ripley in the javelin throw and Colin Stoeber in the 2000 meter steeplechase. A&M captured the first four spots in the 1500 meter run with Austin Wells taking first while the women’s team swept the podium in the 400 meter dash with Briyahna Desrosiers taking gold. Devin Jenkins also claimed first place for A&M in the 200 meter dash.
The trio of Jacob Perry, Jan Uribe and Julian Castellano finished in first, second and third place in the 3000 meter run to virtually seal an A&M first place finish at the invitational. The Aggies’ 4-by-400 meter relay squad of Deon Hickey, Richard Rose, JaQwae Ellison and Efrain Hernandez were able to pull away with the final event of the meet. Their combined effort led to a victory, but only ahead by just less than a quarter of a second of Baylor’s A group.
Audrey Malone captured first in an Aggie medal sweep in the javelin throw event with Malone’s 51.76 meter finish on her final attempt. A&M’s combined team of Aaliyah Brown, Jennifer Madu, Diamond Spaulding and Brenessa Thompson was able to take the 4-by-100 meter relay by just .12 of a second over Baylor’s team.
The Aggies will return to competition Wednesday, Mar. 30 to compete in the Texas Relays and will conclude Saturday, Apr. 2.
