COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi track & field team concluded its run at the 44 Farms Team Invitational with a very strong showing on Saturday, building upon its performance in the opening day with two more school records and multiple other personal bests.
The Islanders wasted no time getting into the record books in the final day of the event, with sophomore
Breyunna Dowell starting things off by becoming the new program record holder in the women's hammer throw. Dowell accomplished the feat in her third attempt of the day, reaching a high mark of 58.35m to surpass the previous best of 55.22m set by teammate
Cyan Green at the UTSA Invitational on March 21. This throw also easily surpassed her old high, clearing the 54.51m mark she set at the Bobcat Invitational on March 29 by nearly four meters.
The other record on Saturday came from freshman
Phylis Kibet, who ended up taking the top spot in the women's 1,500m later on in the evening. Kibet crossed the line in the event in 4:25.31, which topped her old personal best of 4:31.98 from the 97
th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays two weeks ago and surpassed the old high mark of 4:26.34 set by Allyson Girard more than seven years ago on March 28, 2018. In addition to the school record, Kibet also earned first place at the meet by more than three seconds, which marked the team's second gold medal of the weekend after freshman
Elizabeth Khatevi also won one in the women's 800m on Friday.
"Our women keep setting a new standard for Islanders Track & Field," said head coach
Bryan Jackson. "Not just the three new school record holders, but the entire group who compete with great consistency."
In addition to Dowell and Kibet, the Islanders also saw freshman
David Johnson climb the program's all-time rankings in the men's 100m. After entering the weekend in a tie for 10
th place, Johnson put together his best effort of the season, finishing in 10.67s to top his previous best by .10s. This moved Johnson up four spots to sixth in Islanders history, and it brought him just .06s from moving into the top three and .23s away from taking the top spot.
Beyond the three who rose up their respective top 10 lists, A&M-Corpus Christi also got a number of other standout showings on the day. To start, freshman
Jeremiah Batiste finished the men's 400m with a time of 48.98s, which marked his new personal best and placed him just .34s shy of cracking the leaderboard in the event. In the women's javelin throw, senior
Katie Long continued her march toward the program record, improving up to 42.78m to move to within two meters of the top mark set all the way back in 2012. Finally, freshman
Armando Rivera and senior
Nyadhol Thichiot each logged new personal bests in the triple jump, with the former reaching 14.68m on the men's side and the latter reaching 12.77m on the women's to come closer to the top spot of 12.87m that has stood for nearly 14 years.
The Islanders will now head home to prepare for a big week ahead, splitting the team between the Bryan Clay Invitational, hosted by Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California, and the Michael Johnson Invitational, hosted by Baylor. The former will start on April 17 and run for three days, while the latter kicks off one day later and lasts until April 19.
"The next few weeks should be very telling for this team," Jackson said. "Both the men and women have been training very well and are capable of some special performances as we draw closer to our championship phase of the season."
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