Sophomore Jessica Jones won the league's 100-meter hurdles title on Sunday. |
HUNTSVILLE ? UTSA sophomore Jessica Jones won the 100-meter hurdles and sophomore Dana Mecke posted a pair of runner-up finishes to guide the women’s track & field team to a fourth-place finish on Sunday at the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships.
Jones captured her first-ever conference crown with an impressive performance in a close hurdles final. She closed strong over the final three hurdles and used a good lean to stop the clock in 13.76, just beating out Silent-Joy Egboba-Waye of Stephen F. Austin and Tiana Lee of Sam Houston State, who both crossed in 13.79. Jones’ time was a personal-best and an NCAA Regional qualifier and it makes her the No. 4 performer on the school’s all-time list. The win marked UTSA’s fourth conference 100m hurdles crown in the past five years and seventh overall. Jones also finished sixth in the 400m hurdles in 1:04.51.
“Jessica was just fantastic,” head coach James Blackwood, who coached in his final SLC Championship meet, said. “I told her before the race that she could win this thing, and she just stay focused all the way through to the line.”
Mecke pulled off a tough double in the middle distances, posting second-place showings in the 800m and 1,500m, which were contested just one hour apart. She used a strong final 100 meters to overtake Meghan Lemke of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for second place at the line in the 1,500m, clocking a 4:36.51 ahead of Lemke’s 4:36.84. Lamar’s Clerc Koenck led from wire-to-wire en route to a 4:30.93.
Mecke led a strong contingent of Roadrunners in the 800m, as four UTSA athletes finished in the top seven to contribute 21 points toward the team total. Mecke timed 2:12.16, while the freshman duo of Kim Brooks and Jayde James finished third (2:14.33) and fourth (2:15.19), respectively. Sophomore Faith Barlow was seventh in 2:19.14 in the race won by Hannah Manneius of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in a stadium-record time of 2:11.69.
“Dana is an absolute stud,” Blackwood said. “Putting up two performances like those in this sun and wind in less than an hour is unbelievable.”
The Roadrunners finished fourth with 70.66 points, their fifth straight top-five finish. Sam Houston State won with 175.5, followed by Texas State (148.5) and Stephen F. Austin (124.83).
UTSA began the final day on the track with a five-point effort in the 4x100m relay. Junior Shanelle Slaughter, senior Brittany Epps, Jones and junior Ashley Jackson teamed up for a fourth-place and season-best time of 46.02.
Jackson also tallied three points in the 200m later in the evening, crossing in 24.31 to match her season best posted in Saturday’s preliminary round. She then anchored the 1,600m relay team (Brooks, Mecke and Jones) to fourth place in 3:50.24.
In the field, freshman Nolandra McCray just missed a point in the discus, finishing ninth with a 117-9 measure.
“I thought coming in that if we had a good meet we could finish fourth,” Blackwood said. “We had some injuries to fight through, but everyone on this team stepped up when their time came and gave us great effort."