T&F Heads to C-USA Championships

Saturday, February 20

Birmingham, AL

University of North Texas

Conference USA Championships

2/18/2021 6:09:00 PM | Track & Field/XC

Schedule of Events Live Results Watch (Day 1)Watch (Day 2)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – North Texas travels to compete in the Conference USA Indoor Track & Field Championships Feb. 20-21 hosted by UAB.

"I'm excited for the championship," director of track and field Carl Sheffield said. "We have a really good group of people this year. In our first three indoor meets we showed a lot of progress and promise. I'm looking forward to it and happy that we get a chance to compete for championships. We're going to go out and give it our best."

Mean Green men sprints has a stronghold on the 60 and 200-meter dash. North Texas enters the meet with five runners ranked in the top eight in C-USA in the 60, including Antonio Delacruz and Karlington Anunagba who are tied with the fastest time at 6.72 seconds. Samir Williams (6.79) holds the fourth spot, with Jared Johnson (6.86) in sixth and Davonye Jones (6.90) in eighth. Delacruz also headlines the 200 at 21.28 seconds with Jones (21.41) and Herron Harrison, Jr., (21.52) right behind him. Anunagba (21.79, 7^th) and Samir Williams (21.95, 8^th) also sit in the top eight.

"We've been trying to consider consistency," Sheffield said. "It's been difficult when people are sitting out because of quarantine and COVID, but we've been trying to rely on our consistency and our preparation to make sure that we're getting the foundation and the basic stuff. We'll show up on Saturday and see how we do given the basic fundamentals that we try to input every day."

North Texas enters the meet with four top heights in pole vault. Cody Bullard, Michael Gonzalez and Brock Hottel each come in at 5.10 meters to lead the men's field. Bailey Ashmore is the top-ranked woman vaulter at 4.01 meters, and Sydney Salinas is fourth at 3.86.

Mean Green throws looks to have an impact with Jaleisa Shaffer defending her number-one ranking in shot put at a distance of 14.79 meters. Macayla Needham has the third-best throw at 14.11 meters, while in the weight throw Haley Walker ranks sixth at 17.55 meters. Chris Samaniego comes in with the second-best mark in shot put (16.39 meters) and weight throw (18.06). Also in weight throw, Jake Parchman is sixth (15.49), and Wardell Glaspie is eighth (15.34). Kendal Maples holds the seventh-best mark in shot put (14.97).

"It has been a very unique indoor season," Sheffield said. "We're happy that we got an opportunity to compete since we missed last spring. It's been a challenging indoor season, but I think we did the best that we could. Most of our groups had been out for a period of time, but we sprung back. With the facilities that we have it provided us opportunities to continue to train as consistently as possible, but I think we did well."

Lyric Choice holds the second-fastest time in the 60-meter hurdles at 8.68 seconds. The men's 4x400 relay teams comes in fourth with a time of 3:20.05, as does Joseph Squire in the 60-meter hurdles at 8.05 seconds. Luke Canon squeaks in at the eighth spot both in the 800-meter run (1:57.78) and the mile (4:20.04) for the Mean Green.

"I would like to highlight our facilities and our administration that has allowed us to go out and race every day and to travel the way we have," Sheffield said. "Our indoor facilities have been a godsend. Being able to compete in a facility like that and not miss any sprint days or any practice days has been really good for us. I think that's been an edge for us; we haven't missed a sprint day. I think that's why our guys ran so well indoors because we were still able to train at a very high level. We're very special to have what we have, so hopefully it'll pay off. We love it."