WALNUT, Calif. – Saturday’s action in California at the 65th Mt. SAC Relays provided the Roadrunners with multiple PR opportunities at Hilmer Lodge Stadium, led by an All-American level performance by senior transfer Hugo Menin late in the day. Saturday’s events also closed the book on the historic national meet for the season.
Into the afternoon’s late running events, Tarleton State transfer Menin (Cysoing, France) rolled out to a career-best 49.77 clocking in the invitational 400m hurdles. That mark not only earned him the overall silver but was the top collegiate performance behind only former Texas A&M All-American James Smith II. Menin’s time also shot up the national standings and set a new No. 3 performance in the nation and is the second-fastest UTSA all-time mark.
Registering UTSA's top field event performance of the day in the horizontal jumps, senior Rachela Pace logged an outdoor season-best in the invitational triple jump with a leap of 13.05m (42-9.75) to finish second overall and take over the No. 2 placement in the UTSA record book – taking over the tentative top spot in the American Athletic Conference standings. In other horizontal jumps, senior Oreoluwa Adamson reached 6.07m (19-11.5) to finish ninth in the invitational long jump final, while sophomore Ida Breigan was 11th with a 5.99m (19-8) measurement.
In the vertical jumps, redshirt freshman Mia Lien reached 1.80m (5-10.75) in the invitational high jump to finish fourth in the field, while sophomore Edlin Laur came up to a season-best 1.75m (5-8.75) for ninth place.
In other hurdles action, freshman Selma Ims came in at 13.71 seconds in the invitational 100m hurdles for 13th, then turned right around on short rest and produced a 57.44 for fifth place in the invitational 400m hurdles – just .04 shy of her career best. On the men’s side, freshman Charlie Staddon went a personal-best 13.78 in the invitational 110m hurdles, earning 10th place and the fourth-best time in UTSA history.
Leading the UTSA throwers, sophomore transfer Nyaluet Diew tossed a career-best 16.22m (53-2.75) to finish fifth in the invitational shot put – raising her existing No. 2 mark in the UTSA all-time performances by .48 meters. On the men’s side, graduate student Garrett Stokes logged a season-best 60.25m (197-8) to come in seventh in the invitational hammer throw – adding a new No. 4 entry on UTSA’s historic performances list.
Opening the running events for the day, the invitational 4x100m relay of Leah Smith, Ibiso David-West, Thennelle Williams and Kyla Hill finished 15th with a 46.15 clocking. Senior Fatoumata Kabo added a 16th-place season-best of 53.82 seconds in the invitational 400m, and senior Thennelle Williams finished 19th in the invitational 200m with a 26.16 to close out UTSA’s performances at the historic multi-day national meet.
Next week brings a return trip to Austin and Mike A. Myers Stadium, traveling to the Texas Invitational, Thursday, April 24 - Friday, April 25. The Texas Invite will be the second to last meet of the outdoor regular season ahead of mid-May’s AAC Championships in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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