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NEW YORK CITY — The UTSA men's track & field team saw two program records, one of which was a new Southland Conference standard, fall during Friday's opening day of action at the prestigious New Balance Invitational.
The distance medley quartet of senior Cole Reveal, sophomores Chrishunn Jamerson and Brady Hand and senior Albert Cardenas circled the historic 168th Street Armory banked track 20 times in 9:49.90 on their way to a fifth-place finish in the meet's championship division. That time was nearly 10 seconds faster than the 16-year-old Southland record previously held by UT Arlington (9:59.09). It marked the second consecutive year that the school mark fell at the meet and almost a 10-second improvement over the 9:59.76 recorded by Cardenas, Canel Cole, Jamerson and Mike Medrano last February. In fact, three of the top four performances in program history have come at this event. The quartet now ranks 14th on the national leaderboard. Texas A&M won the event in a meet-record time of 9:29.71.
Meanwhile, junior Tyler Williamson broke the Roadrunners' four-year-old long jump mark after recording a 25-0 ½ (7.63m) en route to a third-place performance in the championship flight. Not only did the Houston native post the Southland Conference's top measurement of the season (eight inches longer than his nearest competitor), but he also moved up to 13th on the national leaderboard. He broke current UTSA assistant coach Steven Brown's previous standard of 24-7 by more than five inches and it was an eight-and-a-half-inch improvement over his previous best established at last year's Texas Tech Invitational. LSU's Damar Forbes broke the sand in 26-0 ¾ (7.94m) for the gold medal.
UTSA also received solid performances from sophomore Keyunta Hayes and junior All-American Richard Garrett Jr. during the opening day of competition.
Hayes shaved four one-hundredths of a second off the personal record he recorded at last weekend's Houston Invitational/Multis. The Tyler native skimmed the 60-meter hurdles in 7.91 en route to a fifth-place performance in the championship division consolation final.
Garrett, meanwhile, recorded a season-best measurement of 59-2 ½ (18.04m) in a sixth-place effort in the shot put (championship flight).
The two-day meet concludes on Saturday.