CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – As announced by the NCAA on Thursday afternoon, the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi track & field team had five of its athletes qualify for the West Region First Round, with the group set to travel to the campus of Texas A&M in College Station on May 28-31.
Of the five competitors for the Islanders, three come on the women's side and two come on the men's. For the former, junior
Cyan Green will compete in the shot put, sophomore
Breyunna Dowell will appear in the hammer throw and senior
Nyadhol Thichiot will feature in the triple jump. As far as the latter, senior
Izac Canchola and freshman
Alex Del Popolo will both compete in the javelin.
"I'm really proud of these five young men and women and excited for this opportunity for them," said head coach
Bryan Jackson. "The great thing about our sport is that on that day, no one's previous marks come into play. It's the best 12 in each event that will qualify on to the national championship, and I'm looking forward to seeing them take their shot."
Green qualified with the 37
th best mark in the West Region in the shot put with a throw of 15.79m, which she achieved at the Bobcat Invitational on March 29 in an Islanders record-setting performance. She most recently got ninth in the event at the Southland Conference Outdoor Championships, a meet in which she also took home the bronze medal in the hammer throw one day earlier.
Dowell's best mark in the hammer throw this season happened at the 44 Farms Team Invitational on April 12, coming in at a school-record 58.35m to qualify at 37
th in the West. She took home the silver medal in the event at the SLC Outdoor Championships, finishing one spot ahead of Green with a throw of 53.97m.
Thichiot also achieved her best mark in the triple jump at the 44 Farms Team Invitational, recording a leap of 12.77m to qualify in 38
th place. Like Dowell, she also took home second place at the SLC Outdoor Championships, doing so with a mark of 12.53m last Saturday. The NCAA Regional gives Thichiot another shot to break the school record in the triple jump, as entering the meet, she sits in second in school history by just .10 meters.
Canchola qualified the highest among all the Islanders competitors, reaching the No. 26 spot in the javelin after throwing a school-record 68.68m at the Michael Johnson Invitational on April 19. This year marks the fourth different time that he has punched his ticket to an NCAA Regional during his collegiate career, also doing so in both 2021 and 2023 with Stephen F. Austin and 2024 with Houston.
Del Popolo comes in right behind Canchola in the event, qualifying in 39
th with a throw of 65.36m that he achieved at the Bobcat Invitational. He most recently won the bronze medal at the SLC Outdoor Championships, getting on the podium after topping out at 60.98m.
The Islanders will have at least one athlete compete on three of the four days of the West First Round, with Canchola and Del Popolo starting things off on Wednesday at 2:30 p.m., Dowell and Green taking the field on Thursday at 10:00 a.m. and 6 p.m. respectively and Thichiot wrapping the week up on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The top 12 finishers in each event at the meet will advance on to the NCAA Track & Field Championships, which is currently scheduled to be held on June 11-14 in Eugene, Oregon.
Click here to see the full list of qualifiers for the
men and the
women.
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