SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA men's track & field team will begin postseason competition this week when it competes at the Conference USA Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Ala. The two-day meet is scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning at the Birmingham CrossPlex.
The event will begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday with the heptathlon and that will be followed by the high jump, pole vault, long jump and weight throw finals at 3 p.m. The 5,000 meters and distance medlay relay finals along with the remainder of the running preliminary heats are slated to start at 4 p.m. Thursday will see the remaining three disciplines of the hep being contested at 9 a.m. followed by the triple jump and shot put two hours later. The meet will conclude with the remaining running event finals beginning at 1 p.m. (click here for the complete schedule).
If the current conference standings are any indication, the Roadrunners are poised to compete for yet another league championship this week.
UTSA, which has won either an indoor or outdoor conference crown in each of the past 10 seasons, currently leads the league in three events. Roadrunners athletes also reside in second place in seven disciplines and another stands in third place, giving the Birds a strong chance of winning the ninth indoor championship in program history.
Leading the way is Dusan Makevic, who owns the circuit's top times in both the 3,000 meters and 5k. His marks of 8:08.35 and 14:01.36 have broken long-standing school records this year and his 5,000m time currently ranks 39th nationally. He also is a part of the squad's second-place distance medley relay quartet that has clocked a top time of 10:10.04 this season and Luca Chatman, Kaylan Harris and Kyren Hollis make up the other three spots on that foursome. The senior from Sabac, Serbia, also owns the conference's second-fastest mile clocking (adjusted time of 4:02.86), which ranks second on UTSA's all-time performers chart.
Adrian Riley enters the meet as the league leader in the heptathlon following his career-best 5,151-point performance two weeks ago at the Charlie Thomas Invitational.
Other Roadrunners ranking second in the circuit include Ty Anderson in the high jump (PR 7-0 ¼/2.14m/36th in country), Barrett Brock in the pole vault (16-0 ¾/4.90m), Victor Perez in the weight throw (PR 61-8 ¼/18.80m), Gabe Vargas in the shot put (PR 57-7 ¾/17.57m) and the 1,600m relay team of Vasha Sheriff, Harris, Hollis and Jurmarcus Shelvin (3:11.78).
Shelvin also sits in third place in the 400m with his personal-best time of 47.76, which was recorded at the season-opening Texas A&M 11-Team Invitational.
Andrew Akens successfully defended his shot put crown, Keyunta Hayes raced to victory in the 60m hurdles and their performances helped lead UTSA to second place at last year's league championship meet. The Roadrunners made a late charge to rack up 107 points en route to its runner-up finish. Western Kentucky won the team championship with 127 points in its C-USA debut and UTEP was third with 101.
UTSA has captured a total of eight conference team crowns and 72 individual/relay championships in school annals.