SAN ANTONIO — Ty Anderson collected UTSA's third gold medal of the weekend on Saturday and the Roadrunners finished fourth in the team standings at the inaugural Ricardo Romo Invitational, which was contested the past three days at Park West Athletics Complex.
Anderson, the 2015 Conference USA Champion, cleared a career-best 7-0 ½ (2.15m) in topping the field of 12 high jumpers. The performance moved him into second place on the program's all-time performers chart with the nation's 11th-best mark (2nd C-USA) of the young season. It also was the third victory of his two-year career.
"It felt great to win with a PR today," Anderson said. "It definitely was a win to remember and I'm looking forward to going out there again next week and try to beat the record. We had a lot of great performances against some tough competition this weekend, so it's great to see our hard work paying off."
Meanwhile, Jurmarcus Shelvin just missed his second victory in the 400-meter hurdles in as many meets to open the outdoor campaign when he was edged by Texas A&M's Robert Grant by a mere four one-thousandths of a second. The senior from Pasadena dueled with Grant throughout the third heat and both runners broke the tape in 50.21, but the Aggie out leaned UTSA's All-American for the victory. The pair now owns the third-fastest time in the country this season and the mark broke Shelvin's previous personal best from a year ago by a quarter of a second.
Patrick Prince also picked up a silver medal in the 110m hurdles with the fifth-fastest performance in the school history. The freshman from Conroe crossed the finish line in 14.13, which was second only to Baylor's Rhys Phillips, who won the event in 14.00. Justin Gerbrecht (PR 14.31) and Jonas Gutierrez (14.84) finished third and fourth, respectively, which gave the Roadrunners a combined 19 points in the event.
UTSA's 400m relay team of Davante Edwards, Mikael Dawkins, Aaron LeJeune and Caleb Howe registered UTSA's other podium finish on Saturday when it raced to third place in 41.14.
Second-ranked Texas A&M won the team title with 221 points. Akron (121) and Baylor (115) rounded out the top three and the Roadrunners racked up 106 points en route to fourth place.
UTSA will be back in action at next weekend's Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. The four-day meet is scheduled to get underway on Wednesday, March 30.