An even better finish in the 10K for the women. Freshman Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi wins by 21 seconds over a runner from Charlotte, and sophomore Khayla Patel finishes 3rd!

Owls finish 1-3-8 in the decathlon. (Torrance finished last in the 1,500-meter run to drop down from 5th.)

Rice men and women lead in points after three events (Hammer throw, Decathlon/Heptathlon and 10,000-meter run):

Men:
1) Rice 45
2) Charlotte 20
3) UTEP 17
4) UTSA 11
4) North Texas 11
6) Southern Miss 7
7) Louisiana Tech 6

Women:
1) Rice 20
2) FIU 19
3) Mid. Tenn. State 15
4) Southern Miss 14
4) Marshall 14
6) Charlotte 11
7) UTEP 10
8) Florida Atlantic 8
9) UTSA 6

Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi ran a perfect race. There was a pack of 7 until about 4K, when it became 6. When it became a lead group of 5 at about 7K, she made a move and no one went with her. The 5 had been averaging about 2:53 for each 800, but when she dropped the pace to sub-2:50, no one went with her. It really was over with about 2K remaining.

Congrats to her. Beautiful name, although I suspect announcing it for 10,000 meters must be a little challenging (does she use Vivas de Lorenzi, or just de Lorenzi?). In reading her bio, I see she was born in Argentina. I wonder if she might compete for them in this summer's World Under 20 championships in Finland? I would think she could get that 5K qualifying standard at the right meet (meaning not Houston in the summer).

(05-08-2018 09:58 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  The Parliament should know that helping out with this meet is Amanda Gerlach, Rick's daughter. I've kept in touch with her since Rick's untimely death last August, and she wanted to get some experience in working behind the scenes. She just finished her junior year at Trinity, and is on their track and field team, though she was injured this spring.

So sorry to hear about Rick. Pretty sure my daughter played softball with Amanda many years ago. Met Rick and we talked about Rice, etc. I post off/on on here, but remembered him from the message board. Hope to go tomorrow night.

Saturday competition is off and running. And the Owls continue to do well. Michelle Fokam just won the LJ on her final attempt with a PR (21-2 1/2). Austin Riddle was second in the discus, also moving up a few spots I think on the final throw. We've had some other nice stuff happen but I'm not going to update every race - I'll just pipe in if something notable occurs.

Hannah Jackson wins the 5th and final heat (time: 11.56 seconds) to qualify for tomorrow's 100-meter dash finals. She was the fastest of all qualifiers!

(05-12-2018 07:22 PM)Almadenmike Wrote:  Hannah Jackson wins the 5th and final heat (time: 11.56 seconds) to qualify for tomorrow's 100-meter dash finals. She was the fastest of all qualifiers!

No fair without a biased attendance picture!

Jason Bugg won the second men's 880 heat (1:52.20) to qualify for tomorrow's final, while Reagan Olguin finished 3rd (1:53.50) in that heat and was the fourth and last runner to qualify for the final on non-winning time.

In the women's 880, Hannah Bablak finished 3rd (2:12.83) in her heat (the 2nd of 3) to be the fastest non-winning time qualifier.

Hannah Jackson also was the fastest qualifier in the 200 meters.

On the men's side, Charlotte has tons of points, but not as much left for Sunday as I might have predicted. UTEP and Western Kentucky are doing well, particularly in the sprints.

It's a toss-up among the women.

Those of you coming tomorrow, if you get there at 4:30 instead of 6 p.m., you can watch the men's javelin in the soccer field - it's always impressive watching the guys throw that spear a long way. Also, you will see one the great talents in the world in Michael Saruni of UTEP. Earlier this year, he set the all-time NCAA record in the 800 meters. Watching him run against other collegiate athletes just seems unfair.

Scoring recap after 2 days...

Men (just the teams of note)
1 Charlotte 78
2 Rice 60
......
UTEP 22
Western Kentucky 15
USM 13
MTSU 5

WK has 11 finalists today, the most of any men's team (in 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 110HH and 400H)
USM, Charlotte, UTEP and UTSA have 8 finalists. MTSU has 7, Rice has 5 (but all in 800 and 1500 and we're not likely to score too many points in those races), UNT 4 and Louisiana Tech just 1.


There are four field event finals today, plus the 2 relays and men's 5K in addition to the 100-1500 listed above.

Women's scoring
1 FIU 47
2 USM 42
3 Rice 41
MTSU 27
UTEP 10

Finalists today - MTSU and Charlotte with 10 apiece, followed distantly by UTEP with 6; Rice, UAB and UNT with 5. More women's teams compete than men and the scoring is definitely more spread around this year. I'm not sure what happened to the UTEP women. They won the conference meet with 153 points last year but just have the 10 points so far this year (heptathlon champ).

I think USM will win women's title. Rice has 30 probable points in Hannah Jackson and Michelle Fokam, but it's tough to see how many more points we can get besides that (Elsa Racasan some in 1500, and possibly some from 5K but unless we score a lot in the PV, I think USM and MTSU will be well ahead of Rice). The men's race is too close to call. Charlotte could hold on but some of the teams way back could score a lot of points today.

If you're going today to the meet, you can also check out Middle Tennessee head coach Larry Hayes who is in 50th year at that school (and I assume once Wayne Graham retires, he'll become the oldest head coach in the conference - he's 77). Hayes has nothing on former UH head coach Tom Tellez though. Tellez still coaches a few athletes including my neighbor Jack Thomas who is a javelin thrower at UH and who will be going for a conference title of his own today in Cincinnati. Tellez is 85.

(05-13-2018 06:33 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Scoring recap after 2 days...

Men (just the teams of note)
1 Charlotte 78
2 Rice 60
......
UTEP 22
Western Kentucky 15
USM 13
MTSU 5

WK has 11 finalists today, the most of any men's team (in 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 110HH and 400H)
USM, Charlotte, UTEP and UTSA have 8 finalists. MTSU has 7, Rice has 5 (but all in 800 and 1500 and we're not likely to score too many points in those races), UNT 4 and Louisiana Tech just 1.


There are four field event finals today, plus the 2 relays and men's 5K in addition to the 100-1500 listed above.

Women's scoring
1 FIU 47
2 USM 42
3 Rice 41
MTSU 27
UTEP 10

Finalists today - MTSU and Charlotte with 10 apiece, followed distantly by UTEP with 6; Rice, UAB and UNT with 5. More women's teams compete than men and the scoring is definitely more spread around this year. I'm not sure what happened to the UTEP women. They won the conference meet with 153 points last year but just have the 10 points so far this year (heptathlon champ).

I think USM will win women's title. The men's race is too close to call. Charlotte could hold on but some of the teams way back could score a lot of points today.

If you're going today to the meet, you can also check out Middle Tennessee head coach Larry Hayes who is in 50th year at that school (and I assume once Wayne Graham retires, he'll become the oldest head coach in the conference - he's 77). Hayes has nothing on former UH head coach Tom Tellez though. Tellez still coaches a few athletes including my neighbor Jack Thomas who is a javelin thrower at UH and who will be going for a conference title of his own today in Cincinnati. Tellez is 85.

Dean Hayes.

Also, before the meet, I picked Charlotte (men) and Southern Miss (women) to win (work prevented me from doing my usual preview). I thought that Rice men could finish 3rd, and that the Rice women should get 3rd, with an outside shot at winning.

Sorry Dean Hayes, I must have had Larry Hays (former Texas Tech baseball coach) on my mind.

Nice video of Michelle Fokam's winning LJ yesterday. Nice sportsmanship on her part too to congratulate the UNT jumper who went from 1st to 2nd on the final jump.

https://twitter.com/RiceTFXC/status/995481210712461312

Eric Maher of Rice wins the javelin on his final throw, moving from outside of the podium to 1st place. The previous leader, Javier Lopez-Ibarra of North Texas, was the last thrower (just after Maher) and had a monster throw. Unfortunately, he fouled by stepping over the line by what looked to be by about one centimeter.

Nice! Did Nyakwol score points in the triple jump? As I recall, he was really good in HS.

Yes he was 6th in the event with a best jump of 49-8 1/2. Not bad for his only meet of the year.

Michelle Fokam with another huge PR to win the triple jump. She went 13.43 meters (44-0 3/4) and is now within striking range of one of the older Rice records around (Claudia Haywood's 44-6 1/2 set while winning the NCAA's in 1993). Claudia (Minor) is a neighbor not too far from me - I'll have to warn her school record is in jeopardy next time I see her.

W[/i]RC, what’s happening. Are we doing better or worse than expected, or about the same. Thanks.

He's announcing - he won't be able to respond. The men are absolutely doing better. We were 3rd, 4th and 6th in the 1500 so we're once again tied for the team lead (with Charlotte) with 94 points. To get into triple digits in points would be a remarkable feat (and that should happen with the shot put, 800 and 5000. But we still won't finish better than 3rd I don't believe (maybe 2nd if another team under-performs?).

Elsa Racasan got 4th in 1500 with a decent time but we're a distant 2nd to Southern Miss right now (we have 60 points compared to their 81). Even with Hannah Jackson and the pole vault, I doubt we can get close to USM. 3rd place would be a good finish for them, especially considering pretty much all of their points (outside of one senior pole vaulter) are likely from freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

Hannah Jackson wins the 100 (11.51). That might be our first 100-meter title ever in conference women's track and field annals? I can't recall for sure. I'm not sure if we ever have had a 200-meter champ either, but I suspect that will happen more easily than the margin of the 100 (.07 seconds).

ETA - one other 100 meter winner (in 2004 - Nina Mayes, she also won the 200 that year in the WAC).