The Texas A&M women’s track and field team placed third in the NCAA Championships Saturday in Eugene, Oregon. 
Two standouts for A&M during its impressive weekend were Shelbi Vaughan and and Shamier Little who both defended their NCAA titles in discus and the 400m hurdles, respectively. 
Head coach Pat Henry spoke on his athletes’ success. 
“Any time you defend a NCAA championship and you’re as young as those two, it’s a big time performance,” said Henry. “201 feet is a great throw on this day for Shelbi as she defends her title. Shamier Little ran the fastest time in the world right now and she is just a sophomore. That was a tremendous race for her.”
The standout performances from the two defending champs helped A&M to gaining a total of 47 points which was just 12 shy of the first place team, Oregon. The Aggies fell just short of earning the silver, as Kentucky finished the meet with 50 points. 
Although the women’s team was unable to repeat their team championship performance, coach Henry was, of course, still pleased with his athletes. 
“We’re right there,” said Henry. “Our team competed very well today. I’m extremely pleased with the way we competed.”
In a meet with the best sprinters in the nation, Aggie 200m runner, Kamaria Brown set a personal record and fell just one 1/100th of a second short of a Texas A&M record. Brown finished third in a tight race with a time of 22.24. 
With a group of young athletes, namely sophomore Shamier Little, returning to the team next year the Aggies will be primed and ready to compete for yet another national championship. 
Unfortunately, the Texas A&M men’s team was unable to find its way back to the podium in this year’s NCAA Championships and finished sixth in the field of 81. 
Like the women’s field, the men’s team from Oregon was named the champion with a staggering 85 points compared to 27 from the Aggies. The Ducks defended its team championship in front of a huge hometown crowd of 11,734 attendees.  
Finishing strongest for the Aggies was Latario Collie who placed second in the triple jump. Collie’s jump of 17.01m secured his silver medal and made him the third Aggie to ever finish second in the NCAA triple jump. 
Head coach Pat Henry spoke on the performance of his junior jumper. 
“It’s great to see Latario jump that far in this kind of competition,” said Henry. “He held up his end of the bargain and did a great job today.”
Moving forward in the competition, focus began to shift to the track where the men’s 400m dash took place, and more importantly, where Deon Lendore would be running. 
In what was a very unfortunate break for the Aggies, Lendore pulled up 125m into the race and was unable to finish due to what seemed to be a hamstring injury. According to coach Henry, the injury “changed up a lot of things” in the team’s strategy moving forward. 
Lendore’s injury paired with the scheduling of the meet led to even more change for the Aggies especially concerning the finale of the meet, the 4x400m relay. 
“This time schedule doesn’t allow a sprinter to come back and do a couple of doubles they’ve always been able to do,” said Henry. “This is a great schedule for distance people, but it isn’t for sprinters. We had some guys try to do some things in the relay, but we couldn’t line-up and get it done.”
Directly affected by the scheduling was Gregory Coleman who competed in the 400 hurdles and finished fifth. The time in between the hurdles and the relay was not enough for Coleman to ready himself, so A&M looked to a different group to compete in the event. 
Deon Hickey, Shavez Hart, Hector Hernandez and Brandon Taplin finished seventh in the race with a time of 3:06.85. The seventh place finish solidified the Aggies’ place in the standings and concluded the meet.