SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA men's track & field team will be in search of its second indoor/outdoor sweep in the last three seasons when it heads to the Metroplex this weekend for the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships. The three-day event will take place at Maverick Stadium on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Competition gets underway Friday morning with the decathlon and runs through the 1,600m relay, which is slated for 7:40 p.m. on Sunday. For complete meet information and real time results, click here.
The Roadrunners enter the meet with the league's top mark in three events thisspring, all of which are program records.
The 400-meter relay team of freshman Adam Hebert, senior All-American Teddy Williams, junior John Matthews and freshman Nate Brunette clocked a school-record 39.59 on April 2 at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. It is nearly three-quarters of a second faster than the top mark posted by second-place UT Arlington and also stands as the ninth-best clocking in the nation entering the weekend.
Meanwhile, freshman Keith Benford's program-record-tying clearance of 7-0 ½ (2.15m) at last month's Mt. SAC Relays has him situated atop the league standings. Benford was was named the Southland Indoor Freshman of the Year after winning the same event at February's meet.
Junior Devon Bond twice has established new school standards in the triple jump this season and he comes into this weekend's meet with a best of 52-2 ¾ (15.92m), which ranks 11th nationally. That measurement, recorded two weeks ago at the Texas Invitational, has him a foot-and-a-half in front of his nearest competitor entering the weekend. Bond, who also stands seventh on the league's high jump leaderboard (6-8 ¾/2.05m), was tabbed the Southland Indoor Newcomer of the Year after winning the triple jump and placing second to Benford in the high jump three months ago.
Williams, one of just a trio of three-time All-Americans in school annals (Leonard Byrd and Justin Youngblood are the others), enters his final conference meet ranked second in the 100m and 200m dashes. The eight-time Southland Champion clocked a wind-aided 10.19 at last month's Texas Relays, a time that currently ranks ninth in the country, and it is just six ticks behind Northwestern State's Justin Walker's season best. Meanwhile, his windy 21.00 at the Texas Invitational has him 21 one-hundredths of a second behind league-leader Shannon Grover of Southeastern Louisiana. The Tyler native was on his way to another fantastic meet a year ago, but a hamstring injury late in the 100m limited him to third place and he had to withdraw from the 200m after recording the top preliminary time.
All told, UTSA has 17 marks that rank among the top five in their respective event.
The Roadrunners, who have finished no worse than fourth in each of the past half dozen campaigns, own a total of 42 individual and relay crowns in their 18 years of Southland competition, 15 of which have come under the direction of eighth-year head coach Aaron Fox.
Southeastern Louisiana scored 140 points and edged UT Arlington by a half point to win last May's team title.
