With the Cougars beginning training in September, celebrating their 2011 Conference USA Indoor Championship win was a moment more than five months in the making. UH has won eight of the last nine indoor championships. | Jack Wehman/The Daily Cougar
Whether it was in the sprints or jumps, the Cougars were never in jeopardy of being dethroned as the indoor kings of Conference USA.
UH scored 172 points to capture the 2011 Indoor C-USA Championship Saturday at Yeoman Fieldhouse. Tulsa was the Cougars’ closest competition, finishing with 107 points.
“They came out and handled things,” head coach Leroy Burrell said. “They qualified well, put themselves into position to score and did a good job of maxing out of what we’re capable of doing.”
The Cougars swept both the long jump and triple jump with Chris Carter winning both events. Teammates Lamar Delaney, Jonathan Williams and Thomas Lang earned second, third and fourth behind Carter in both events.
Wesley Bray won the heptathlon with a personal-best of 5,671 points.
Errol Nolan was the runner-up in the 60-meter dash, finishing in 6.75 seconds. Nolan suffered an injury upon finishing the race, and was held out of the 200-meter dash.
In Nolan’s absence, Kelvin Furlough won the 200-meter dash in 21.47 seconds.
“I saw him pull up. It was a bad thing, but afterwards I knew it was going to be a lot easier,” Furlough said. “He was mostly my competition.”
Furlough also won the 400-meter dash with a 47.48-second split. Doug Kelley placed second in the 800 with a 1 minute, 52 second finish.
Lang medalled again with a 7.97-second performance in the 60-meter hurdles, good for second place. John Fortune placed third in the shot put throwing for more than 55 feet.
UCF won the women’s championship with 123.5 points. UH was well behind in seventh place and 51 points.
Kiara Pulliam placed second in the shot put with a throw of more than 48 feet. Christie Jones finished second in the 200-meter dash in 23.89 seconds. Karley King and Sage Hintnaus earned second and third place respectively in the pole vault.
“We need to mature a little bit and not get so down ourselves,” Burrell said. “This team is certainly capable of scoring 80 points. We saw there was a challenge and didn’t do a good job of responding to it. The women’s team is 30 points better at this meet.”
YEAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! GO COOGS!!!!!