| Freshman P.J. McGowen won the SLC High Jump Championship on Friday. |
HOUSTON ? Freshman P.J. McGowen won the high jump with a school-record-tying and NCAA provisional leap of 7-1 (2.16m) to highlight UTSA’s first day of action at the Southland Conference Indoor Championships on Friday at Bill Yeoman Field House.
The two-time defending champion Roadrunners finished the day in second place with 37 points and trail Stephen F. Austin by three points heading into Saturday’s final day of action.
McGowen, whose mark is tied for 12th on the national leaderboard, matched Justin Youngblood's seven-year-old standard to become the program's second conference high jump champion (Youngblood, 2001) and 35th overall. Junior Carvey Evans (6-9/2.06m) and sophomore Johnathan Whittaker (6-7/2.01m) finished third and sixth, respectively, to give UTSA 19 points in the event.
Senior Steven Brown placed second in the long jump when he leaped 24-1 ? (7.36m) in his second attempt of the afternoon. Brown also had a busy evening on the track, as he advanced to the 60 and 200 meters finals. The Mesquite native shared the top deuce time of 22.10 with teammate Teddy Williams and posted the third-best 60m mark with his semifinals clocking of 6.84.
The Roadrunners’ other points of the day came from their third-place distance medley relay team (10:15.10/No. 3 in UTSA history) and senior Luke Johnson’s fifth-place effort in the weight throw (UTSA-record 55-3 ?/16.85m).
Sophomore Tommy Wolfe scored 2,970 points in the first four events of the heptathlon and will enter Saturday in second place, 114 points behind leader Aaron Harlan of Stephen F. Austin. Wolfe's score was bulit on the strength of second-place efforts in the 60 meters (7.22), long jump (personal-best 22-1/6.73m) and shot put (43-6/13.26m) and a third-place performance in the high jump (6-3 ?/1.92m).
Williams, meanwhile, continued strong season in the sprints, as he posted the top qualifying times in both the 60 and 200 meters. The sophomore just missed his own SLC mark in the 60m when he blazed to a meet-record 6.67 in winning his semifinal heat. One hour later, he won his preliminary deuce heat in 22.10.
Senior Will Vese continued his dominance in the 60-meter hurdles, easily advancing to Saturday’s final with a preliminary time 7.84. The Houston native was the only competitor to finish in less than eight seconds. Later in the day, he crossed the tape in a personal-best 6.92 in the 60m semifinals to advance to the finals.
Junior Gaston Griffin (49.42), the league's defending 400m champion, and freshman John Matthews (personal-best 49.17) both won their preliminary heats and sophomore Bryan Ugochukwu won his 800m heat and registered the third-best time overall with his 1:56.43 clocking.
All told, 10 Roadrunners advanced to Saturday’s running finals.
Final-day action gets underway with the final three events of the heptathlon at 8:30 a.m. Field competition follows at 11 a.m. and the running finals commence at 1:40 p.m.