HOUSTON, Texas - Weather conditions down in Houston caused a little delay for the start of the Victor Lopez Invitational hosted by Rice University. But by the time the weather cleared up, Lamar University's track and field teams were ready to show off their amazing skills and talents.

The meet began on Friday for the Cardinals and it was there, that a school record was broken by Alex Williams III, who smashed his own record with a weight throw toss of 52.65m despite placing sixth overall. Calvin Mason also moved up the all-time ranks as he tossed 49.08m, which has him second all-time in the program.

Later that night, MyKayla Mims and Jonathan Rivera each partook in their first 3000m steeplechase events of the season. Mims would finish fifth with the ninth best mark in program history at 11:31.31 while Rivera set a new personal best of 9:45.32 in the event to claim ninth place.

On Saturday, Kayli Johnson highlighted LU's performances as she recorded two first place finishes. First, she won another long jump event with 5.94m (19'6").  Then, along with Brianna Howard, Sydne Porter, and Kayla Smith, Johnson won the 4x100m relay with a second best mark in program history of 45.39 seconds. Howard would later take second in the 200m posting 23.89.

The 400m events saw medalists in both the men's circuit as the reigning Southland Conference track athlete of the week Cameron Chin took third in the 400m with a time of 46.72 while Ethan Ellis was second in the 400m hurdles at 52.87. Chloe Rodriguez added a silver medal to her 400m hurdle event at 1:00.54.

A couple of third places finishers in the field events came from Anthony Oliver, who set a personal best 49.23m (161'06") in the discus and Elijah Jackson, who cleared 2.00m (6'6.75") in the high jump. Only four-tenths outside of medaling was Jacarrius Demmerritte in the triple jump (14.56m-47'9.25"). The indoor pentathlon champion Clemence Varin set two personal bests achieving 5.67m (18'7.25) in the long jump as well as 2:17.42 in the women's 800m. The men's 800m saw personal bests set by Freddy Richardson (1:51.39) and Ryan Servantes (1:55.47). The former's time was the fourth fastest out of all collegiate athletes.

Making her debut for the season was Cecile Bogliolo whose javelin toss of 40.17m (131'09") was only 1.35m short of medaling for third place. One week after breaking the school's javelin record, Thomas Knoop did it again as this time, he threw 71.83m (235'08") to earn second place while having his mark ninth in the NCAA currently. Closing out the events were the 1500m runners of Nia Clatworthy and Cara Inch. Although it was Clatworthy (4:27.93) that edged out Inch (4:29.52) for third place overall, the times that the two of them posted were marked as the sixth and eighth best respectively in program history.

 

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