SAN ANTONIO — UTSA will participate in its final meet leading up to the Conference USA Indoor Championships (Feb. 24-25 in Birmingham, Ala.) when it travels to Houston for Friday's Howie Ryan Invitational. The one-day meet will take place at Bill Yeoman Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Houston.
The event will feature 15 NCAA Division I teams from around the region. Athletes from Alcorn State, Grambling, Jackson State, Prairie View A&M, Rice, Southern-New Orleans, Tartleton State, Texas-Rio Grande Valley, Texas-Tyler, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas Southern, Texas State and Trinity will join the Roadrunners and host Cougars along with countless other club teams and individual athletes.
Field event action is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. and will continue throughout the day, while running competition is slated to start two hours later.
UTSA's 1,600-meter relay team missed an 11-year-old program record by just two-hundredths of a second to highlight its two days of action at last weekend's Charlie Thomas Invitational. The foursome of Jennifer Arinze, Shantel Swift, Evelyn Clark and Paige Patterson passed the baton in 3:43.72 and that came up just short of the school mark of 3:43.70 that was clocked on Jan. 22, 2005, at the Wes Kittley Six-Way. The Roadrunners now own Conference USA's second-best time this season.
Stephanie Wangui ranks among the top three in the league with her 800m time of 2:11.65, while Yulisa Abundis (18:13.62/5,000m), Mia Hicks (44-11 ½/13.70m) and the distance medley relay (12:18.91) stand fourth.