MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Caroline Bellows placed sixth in the pole vault on Friday to lead the UTSA women's track & field team during the second day of the Conference USA Championships.
The freshman from George West cleared 11-5 ¾ (3.50m) en route to scoring the Roadrunners' first three points of the four-day meet and it was just two inches shy of her career best that came at the season-opening UTSA Invitational. Rice's McKenzie Johnson won the event with her vault of 12-5 ½ (3.80).
"I'm excited I was able to help put up a few points on the leaderboard for my team," Bellows said. "It wasn't my best performance, but I'm excited to start training and prepare for next season. I'm beyond grateful of the indoor and outdoor seasons that I've had as a freshman and can't wait to compete with my team again next year."
Rice is on top of the team standings with 39 points after four scored events. Defending champion Western Kentucky (27) and meet host Middle Tennessee (25) round out the top three and the Roadrunners are in 11th place with three points.
Other top performances of the day for UTSA included 12th-place finishes from Kerstin Sheehan and Gabriyella Torres.
Sheehan clocked a career-best time of 38:30.49 in the 10,000 meters, while Torres scored a personal-record 4,588 points in the heptathlon on the strength of career bests in the 100m hurdles (15.27), shot put (30-1 ½/9.18m), long jump (18-0 ¼/5.49m) and 800m (2:31.18).
The four-day meet will continue at 3 p.m. on Saturday.
