HOUSTON — Shalise Borden won the weight throw and Gabriyella Torres placed second in the pentathlon, both with personal-best marks, to lead the UTSA women's track & field team on Friday's opening day of this weekend's Houston Invitational at Yeoman Fieldhouse.
Borden topped the field of 27 throwers with a toss of 56-5 ¾ (17.21m) for her first gold medal as a Roadrunner. The senior from Marana, Ariz., added nearly two-and-a-half feet to her previous career best, which came two weeks ago at the season-opening Texas A&M Team Invitational. She ranks third on the program's all-time performance chart and now stands seventh on this year's Conference USA leaderboard.
"I'm very happy about the win today and the personal best for this season," Borden said. "I know that each week we will continue to get better. We have been training hard and I can feel that transitioning into our competitions. We are working very hard and I'm excited to see how everyone will do in our upcoming meets, including conference."
Meanwhile, Torres racked up a career-best 3,365 points in the five-event pentathlon, which was good for second place behind Sam Houston State's Baylee Lara, who captured the gold medal with 3,498 points. The sophomore from Port Isabel saw her score bolstered by a win in the high jump (5-4 ¼/1.63m), a second-place effort in the 60-meter hurdles (PR 9.21) and a career best in the shot put (29-8 ¾/9.06m). She improved her personal best by 101 points from last year's mark of 3,264 that came at the C-USA Championships.
In the running event preliminary heats, Tadrian Rose clocked a season-best 7.67 in the 60m to advance to Saturday's semifinals.
"Overall, we had a great first day," Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Aaron Fox said. "Shalise was awesome and Gabby's performance in the multis was solid as well."
The two-day meet will conclude on Saturday.
