SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA women's track & field team will be back in action at Friday's Howie Ryan Invitational. The one-day meet, which will be the team's final tune-up for next weekend's Conference USA Indoor Championships (Feb. 18-19 in Birmingham, Ala.), is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. at Yeoman Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Houston and running events are slated to begin two hours later (click here for the complete meet schedule).
Athletes from Jackson State, Lamar, Rice, Texas Southern, Texas State and Texas Wesleyan will join the Roadrunners and host Cougars.
Eight Roadrunners — Brenttany Birdow (weight throw), Tameyah Carroll (60m/60m hurdles/long jump), Gabby Gonzales (weight throw), Mia Hicks (shot put), Katelynn Homb (weight throw), Stephanie Sauceda (800m), Jayela Slack (800m) and Jemira Thomlinson (weight throw) — are scheduled to compete for UTSA.
The Birds are coming off a pair of wins at last weekend's Armory Invitational.
Paige Patterson topped the field of 71 400-meter sprinters when she circled the New Balance Track & Field Center banked oval two times in 56.35. The senior from Dearborn, Mich., outran Ohio State's Tamani Wilson (56.43) by eight hundredths of a second for her first gold medal in the quarter as a Roadrunner. On the final day of action, the 1,600m relay quartet of Chelsea Taylor, Jennifer Arinze, Sierra Andres and Patterson passed the baton in 3:45.73, which now stands as the fifth-best time in program history. The foursome now has recorded two of the top five performances in school annals this season and their time of 3:44.32 registered at the Texas A&M Aggies Invitational ranks third in Conference USA standings.
Several Roadrunners set season and career bests during the meet, highlighted by Syd Howells.
Day one action saw Howells advance to the 60m semifinals, where she peeled off a career-best time of 7.53, which now stands fourth on this season's C-USA leaderboard. She returned to the track the next day and set another career best with a 24.54 clocking in the 200m. She placed 15th in the field of 105 athletes in her top effort of the indoor season, which vaulted her into third place in the school's all-time performance list and eighth place in this year's league standings.
Heading into Friday's meet, Elesha Alyn stands fourth in the circuit's ranks with her mark of 40-7 (12.37m) in triple jump and Gabriyella Torres stands fifth in pentathlon (3,365 points).
