With 12 athletes competing in nine events, the No. 7 Texas A&M women’s track and field team showed the NCAA Championships the Aggies were there to compete at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. June 7-10. The Aggies scored a total of 15 team points to land in a tie for 13th place with Boise State, Kent State and Stanford.
Pat Henry, A&M track and field head coach, knew it would be hard going into this meet due to its fluctuating nature.
“The NCAA Championships is a very unpredictable meet with a lot of unpredictable situations… with this group I feel pretty good, we’ve been pretty consistent with our level of performance”, Henry told 12thMan.com before attending the Championships this year.
Despite the tough competition, the Aggies made their presence known by breaking personal records and matching previous school records. Briyahna Desrosiers, Jazmine Fray, Glorillisha Carter, and Jaevin Reed placed fourth in the 4×400 relay with a time of 3:27.26, the third-fastest in A&M’s history.
Fray was the second leg in the relay and although she was out of her comfort zone, she felt the team overall did well.
“Today was a really good race, we PR’d,” Fray told 12thMan.com. “I was definitely a little nervous. I had never run second leg, but I wanted to make it work for my team.”
Fray also ran the 800m, but did not make the finals. Fray tried not to focus on that race simply because the 4×400 relay would need all of her attention and focus.
“In that 800, it wasn’t my best race,” Fray admitted. “But I couldn’t worry about that now, I had to worry about the 4×400 for my team.”
Reed finished the relay as the final leg in the race. As a freshman, the experience was full of personal improvements.
“I feel so blessed to be here because last year I wasn’t anywhere close to these times,” she exlclaimed to 12thMan.com.
Reed was also proud of her team and their placement.
“Definitely when you’re not first you definitely wish you could finish better, but fourth place is not too bad,” Reed added.
Another stand out Aggie from the meet was 100m and 200m finalist, Aaliyah Brown, who wanted “to go out with a bang” for her senior year. She did just that by scoring the team seven points with her fourth place spot in the 200m finals (22.79) and a seventh place spot in the 100m finals (11.21).
“In my senior year I just told myself I wanted to get in those finals to be seen because I do want to go professional,” Brown explained to 12thMan.com. “So to go on to them and be in the fast 100m and fast 200m was really special to me.”
Although the team didn’t reach their goal of placing high in their events, the women are ready and excited to get back to the NCAA Championships next year.
“We’ll definitely come back next year ready to bounce back even stronger, and hopefully get that number one spot!” Reed stated.
Fray on the other hand was excited for the off season and is proud of the way her team finished this season.
“We definitely have confidence into the off season,” Fray said. “We love competing together. To finish strong means a lot to us…we wanted to finish it off strong.”