SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA track & field programs will look to continue their strong starts to the 2011 indoor season this weekend when they compete at the Houston Invitational/Multis. The two-day meet is scheduled to begin on Friday at Bill Yeoman Fieldhouse.
The opening day of action gets underway at noon with the men's heptathlon and women's pentathlon. The first four events of the men's multis will run through 4 p.m. (60m/long jump/shot put/high jump), while the entire women's competition (60m hurdles/high jump/shot put/long jump/800m) will be conested. The women's pole vault kicks off the open field events at 3 p.m. and the weight throw and B sections of the long jump will follow at 4:30. Track action is slated to commence at 4:30 p.m. with the B flights of the 400 meters and the 200m (B section) and distance medley relay will wrap up the first day.
Saturday's schedule begins at 9 a.m. with the shot put and the long jump, triple jump, high jump and men's pole vault will follow. The final three events of the heptathlon (60m hurdles/pole vault/1,00m) will start an hour later and the remainder of the running finals are scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. The meet is slated to conclude at 7 p.m. with the 1,600m relay.
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The Roadrunners will compete against athletes from Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Houston, Houston Baptist, Incarnate Word, Lamar, Lipscomb, Louisiana-Lafayette, McNeese State, North Texas, Nicholls, Northwestern State, Prairie View A&M, Sam Houston State, SMU, Southeastern Louisiana, Southern, Stephen F. Austin, Texas, Texas-Pan American, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Texas Lutheran, Texas State, Texas Wesleyan and UT Arlington.
Two UTSA men currently rank 11th in the country in their respective events.
Sophomore Keith Benford, the regining Southland Conference Athlete of the Week, cleared 7-1 ¾ (2.18m) in winning last weekend's Texas Tech Invitational high jump title. Meanwhile, fellow sophomore Richard Garrett Jr. sits just outside the top 10 with his school-record shot put measurement of 59-11 ¼ (18.27m), which was recorded in winning performance at the season-opening Leonard Hilton Memorial. Both athletes have yet to lose in two outings this season.
All told, a half dozen Roadrunners enter this weekend's meet atop the Southland leaderboards.
The women have three athletes that reside in first place in the league standings.
Freshman Jhorden Hunter leads the 60m standings with her season-opening 7.49 registered at the Leonard Hilton Memorial. Fellow frosh Nina Herrera tops the mile leaderboard with her adjusted time of 5:04.77 (clocked 5:06.40 at last weekend's Texas Tech Invitational). Sophomore Eboni Johnson rounds out the trio of Roadrunners with her season-opening 40-0 ½ (12.20m) measurement in the triple jump.
