| Senior All-American Ryanne Dupree's 28 points on Saturday has UTSA in second place. |
NACOGDOCHES ? Senior All-American Ryanne Dupree won the heptathlon and long jump and finished second in the high jump to highlight day two for the UTSA women’s track and field team at the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships held at Fletcher Garner Track.
Dupree scored 28 points by herself in those three events as UTSA stands second in the team standings after eight events with 49.5 points. Stephen F. Austin leads with 70.5, while UTSA, Texas State (48), Southeastern Louisiana (44) and Lamar (23) round out the top five.
Dupree began her day by holding on to her commanding lead in the heptathlon. She broke her own meet record set two years ago by scoring 5,593 points, her second NCAA automatic qualifier of the season.
Junior teammate Ashley Allen was second with 4,989 points, while junior Kari Michalik and freshman Haylee Allen finished fifth (4,657) and eighth (4,451), respectively, behind a pair of career performances.
Dupree also leaped to a regional-qualifying 20-6 1/4 measure to take top honors in the long jump and cleared a personal-best 5-8 3/4 for second place in the high jump. She stands just one-half point shy of the 28.5 points she scored in 2005 as the high point scorer, which resulted in SLC Athlete of the Year accolades.
The East Central High product has a solid chance of surpassing that tally by a long shot as she posted the top qualifier of the evening in the 100-meter hurdle prelims, a regional-qualifying 13.37. Dupree also runs on UTSA’s second-ranked 4x100m and 4x400m relay teams.
In other final action, junior Brittany Epps finished fourth in the long jump with a 19-3 1/2 mark, while freshman Dana Mecke was fifth in the 3,000m steeplechase in 11:42.28.
The Roadrunners sent 10 athletes into Sunday’s final running events with a solid showing in the prelims. Dupree and senior Lyndsey Sidney (13.71) both met the regional standard in the 100m hurdles, while Sidney also advanced in the 400m hurdles. Senior Hope Jimenez made it through the 800m and 1,500m prelims, while senior Veronica Silva is set to defend her title in the 800m.
The SLC Outdoor concludes on Sunday.