SAN ANTONIO — UTSA senior Luca Chatham and freshman Gary Haasbroek will represent UTSA at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships, which will be held Wednesday-Saturday, June 5-8, at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin.
Chatham will run in the national semifinal round of the men's 800 meters on Wednesday night and Haasbroek will compete in the men's decathlon on Wednesday and Thursday for the Roadrunners.
The four-day meet will get underway at noon Wednesday with the first event in the decathlon, the 100m. The field of 24 athletes will then compete in the long jump (12:40 p.m.), shot put (1:55 p.m.), high jump (3:10 p.m.) and 400m (6:56 p.m.) on the first day.
The second day of the decathlon will begin at 1 p.m. with the 110m hurdles, followed by the discus (1:50 p.m.), pole vault (3 p.m.), javelin (5:30 p.m.) and 1,500m (9:26 p.m.).
Meanwhile, the men's 800m is slated for 5:44 p.m. Wednesday with three heats of eight runners apiece. The top two in each heat plus the next two best times will move on to the final at 8:44 p.m. Friday.
Chatham is making his inaugural NCAA Outdoor Championships appearance in his final season as a Roadrunner. The Dallas native broke the UTSA 800m record with a 1:48.38 clocking to finish fourth in his quarterfinal heat and 11th overall at the NCAA West Preliminary Round on May 24 in Sacramento, Calif. That time eclipsed the previous school standard of 1:48.44 set by Larry Brooks in 2007 and his finish earned him one of 24 spots in the national semifinals.
Chatham, a product of Dallas Wilson High School, was the Conference USA Outdoor runner-up with a 1:50.96 effort last month in Charlotte. He posted four additional podium finishes in the event during the outdoor season, including a second-place showing in 1:50.52 at the Alumni Muster. Chatham accumulated 17.5 points at the C-USA Indoor, as he won the mile, grabbed the bronze medal in the 800m and anchored the distance medley relay to third place.
Haasbroek earned one of 24 spots at the national meet after he scored 7,395 points to run away with the C-USA crown on May 10 in his first decathlon competition of his debut campaign, giving him a sweep of the league's indoor and outdoor combined events titles. His total was 755 points ahead of the runner-up and it moved him into a tie for third place on UTSA's all-time performers list in the event. Haasbroek also cleared 5.06m (16-7 ¼) for fifth place in the pole vault en route to being named C-USA co-Freshman of the Meet.
A native of Melbourne, Australia, Haasbroek garnered second-team All-America accolades in the heptathlon at the NCAA Indoor in March after tallying 5,601 points to place 10th. He smashed the school record with 5,949 points in winning the Houston Invitational heptathlon, also setting new Australian national, meet and facility records in the process. Haasbroek posted 5,559 points to win the event at the C-USA Indoor and was named Freshman of the Meet after also finishing sixth in the long jump and seventh in the pole vault.
