SAN ANTONIO – The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi track & field team kicked off the outdoor portion of its schedule at the UTSA Invitational in San Antonio on Friday, seeing strong efforts from its throwing group on both the men's and women's sides to get the new season started on the right foot.
The Islanders began the day with the first taste of action this year in the javelin throw, with both sophomore
Jordan Bowling and junior
Chase Hight climbing well up into the school's all-time top 10 in the event in their respective 2026 season debuts. To start his second year with the program, Bowling took home a second-place finish overall with a best throw of 64.62m, which was better than any throw from his entire 2025 freshman campaign and helped him move up a spot to third in A&M-Corpus Christi history. Immediately behind him was Hight, who finished third overall and made his way all the way up to fourth in school history with a throw of 62.02m in his first meet with the team after transferring in this year from Ottawa University.
After this, the focus shifted to the rest of the throwing events, where A&M-Corpus Christi continued its nice showing on the day. Starting with the men, the shot put saw junior
Emmanuel Ekuma pick up right where he left off after winning a gold medal at the SLC Indoor Championships three weeks ago, finishing in third place overall with a best mark of 17.31m that came just short of his personal best of 17.53m set at the Outdoor Championships last year. At the same time, freshmen
Samson Black and
Ty Domel made their debuts in the school's top 10 in the event, with Black reaching fourth with a throw of 16.28m and Domel tying for the 10
th spot at 14.00m. These two also did the same thing in their first crack at the hammer throw this year, with the former climbing all the way up to No. 2 with a mark of 52.43m and the latter settling at No. 7 after reaching 38.84m. In the same event, Ekuma came in fourth overall and third among collegiate-affiliated competitors with a throw of 56.17m.
Not to be left out, the women also had their own host of top 10-worthy performances in the same events. In the shot put, junior
Natalia Rankin-Chitar reached 14.90m to rank her second all-time behind only teammate
Cyan Green, and sophomore
Tania Amos came in not far behind at 13.11m to debut at No. 7 overall. In the hammer throw, Green finished fifth overall with a mark of 52.48m, while sophomore
Miranda Jo Martinez and freshman
Abby Moilan each cracked the top 10 in sixth and 10
th respectively with throws of 41.67m and 35.43m.
The only non-throwing top 10 of the day came from graduate
Annukka Willstedt, who did so in the long jump after also competing in the women's javelin earlier in the day. Fresh off a gold medal as part of A&M-Corpus Christi's distance medley relay team at the SLC Indoor Championships, Willstedt did it herself on Friday, reaching a mark of 5.37m that moved her into a tie for 10
th all-time.
The Islanders will now wrap up the UTSA Invitational in the second day of the meet on Saturday, traveling the rest of their team up north to close things out starting at 11 a.m. with the remainder of the field events before shifting to the track at 2 p.m.
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