NACOGDOCHES, Texas – After spending the last three days split between two meets, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi track and field team wrapped up another highlight-filled weekend of outdoor competition at Azusa Pacific and Stephen F. Austin.
The Islanders competed at both the Bryan Clay Invite, hosted by Azusa Pacific, and the Carl Knight Invitational, hosted by SFA. Between the two, there were multiple PRs and even some rearrangement of program top-10 records.
"I'm really proud of how the team competed this weekend," said head coach Bryan Jackson. "There were countless season and lifetime bests throughout every group. They competed with a lot of spirit and energy."
At Bryan Clay, the distance group opened with some record-breaking performances as
Dennis Kipngeno and
Kelvin Kimaiyo both ran sub-30-minute 10k races to place onto the program's top-10 record. Kipngeno, for the second time in his career, ran the program's second-fastest time in the event with his PR of a 29:32.47. Kimaiyo then raced the third-best mark all-time with a 29:54.96 himself.
The Islanders also sent some jumpers out West as
Myla Tate recorded the program's third-best mark in the triple jump with her lifetime best and team season best of a 12.34m. It is the third best jump in the conference in the outdoor season this year.
Nyadhol Thichiot followed with her second 12.00m+ jump on the season in the event.
The majority of the team remained in-state at SFA's Carl Knight Invitational. On Friday, Chloe Grafing Garcia improved on her 1500m race to a 4:40.95 to finish third overall in the event with
Sharon Kiprop right behind her at fourth with a time of 4:40.97. Three on the men's side ran their personal bests in the 1500m including
Hunter Haas with a 4:02.95, Matthew Flores at a 4:05.61, and
Gregorio Alcorta at 4:09.78.
On Saturday, the Islanders relied on their track performance with
Khiah Lara-Turner running the season-best and her PR in the 400m dash at a 56.73s time.
Rene Renteria ran the men's fastest time this season in the 400m with a 49.84s.
In the 100m dash,
Capri Wilson turned in a season best 11.67s time while Roberto Gonzalez did the same for the men with an 11.39s time. In the 200m dash, Lara-Turner ran another PR with a 24.74s time while
John Moreno beat his personal best in the event by .01s with a 22.14s time.
"We still have some process things that need to be cleaned up. As we close in on championship season, I'm challenging them all to take on a higher level of accountability and ownership of the process," said Jackson.
With two weekends left to compete until the SLC Outdoor Championships on May 2-4, the Islanders will remain intact next week as the whole team will head to Rice for the J. Fred Duckett Twilight meet.
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