| Sophomore Dana Mecke won the SLC's 800 meters title on Saturday (photo by Stephen Pinchback). |
HOUSTON ? Sophomore Dana Mecke won her first individual conference crown on Saturday, taking top honors in the 800 meters, to highlight the final day action for the UTSA women’s track & field team at the Southland Conference Indoor Championships.
Mecke circled the Bill Yeoman Field House track four times in 2:15.86 to hold off Hannah Maenius of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (2:16.11) for first place. It marked a personal-best time for Mecke on a flat 200m track and was just .02 seconds behind her career-best 2:15.84 posted two weeks ago at the adidas Classic in Lincoln, Neb.
Earlier in the afternoon, the Smithson Valley High School product kicked off the running finals with a runner-up finish in the mile. Mecke clocked a personal-best 5:02.52 for second behind Lamar’s Clerc Koenck, who posted a meet-record and NCAA provisional-qualifying 4:47.16.
Mecke, who also earned all-conference honors in cross country this past fall, anchored the distance medley relay team to third place on Friday, giving her 19.5 points for the meet.
Sophomore Jessica Jones, who also ran on the bronze-medal DMR, skimmed the 60m hurdles in 8.83 to finish third behind a pair of Sam Houston State runners. Jones registered a personal-best 7.75 in the prelims on Friday.
Jones teamed up with freshmen Kim Brooks and Shavonne Armbrister and senior Brittany Epps for a fifth-place effort in the 1,600m relay. The quartet passed the baton in 3:57.07 in a tight race that saw places 4-9 decided by just over three seconds.
Also on the track, freshman Jayde James scored a point in the 800m, timing 2:21.96 for eighth place.
In field event action, freshman Adrienne Bocanegra scratched for a point in the shot put with an eighth-place measure of 38-11 ?, while freshman Rebekah Hill just missed scoring with a ninth-place leap of 37-5 ? in the triple jump.
In the team standings, the Roadrunners scored 39 points to finish seventh. Sam Houston State won its second straight team title with 138 points, followed by Stephen F. Austin (114.5), Texas State (93.5), Lamar (72), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (60) and UT Arlington (50).