Cameron Burrell (center) ran his first wind-legal 100m of the outdoor season, outrunning both teammates and Aggies with a time of 10.49s on a wet track. | Peter Scamardo/The Cougar
Saturday’s planned clash of titans between the No. 2 ranked Texas A&M Aggies and the No. 3 ranked Cougars — the Houston Alumni Invitational — ended up a rather casual affair for track & field.
With unexpected cold temperatures and a wet track, both sides opted to rest many of their top athletes due to the risk that wind resistance would invalidate many of the running times. In the end, the Cougars closed out the meet with eight event victories between the two teams.
Junior thrower Taylor Scaife had the top performance from the Cougars, breaking the women’s hammer throw record with a mark of 62.10m. As it stands, her mark is No. 16 in the NCAA.
Redshirt senior Brian Barraza ran his first 1500m race of the season, making it public that he was going for the school record of three minutes, 44.48s — the only distance race record that Barraza has yet to claim.
Despite winning the race, he fell short of the record, finishing in three minutes, 46.82s.
The Cougars took the men’s 4x100m relay as an opportunity for their reserve athletes, those who run only if an upperclassmen is injured or unhealthy, to get a run in. However, the team of juniors John Lewis III and Cameron Prejean, freshman Trent McDonald and senior Trumaine Jefferson made it a race against the Aggies A-team.
The Aggies team of Will Williams, Jace Comick, Seth Page and Bryce Deadmon outran the Cougars by only two-tenths of a second, 40.63s to 40.88s.
The rest of the top athletes for UH did what they have done all year: win.
Sophomore sprinter Brianne Bethel took first and second in the women’s 100m and 200m, respectively. Sophomore Samiyah Samuels took first in the long jump with a mark of 6.00m.
Junior Nora Monie dominated the field events, winning the shot put with a mark of 15.13m and taking second in the discus with a best throw of 49.17m.
Senior Cameron Burrell and junior Amere Lattin won the 100m and 110m hurdles respectively, running wind-legal times of 10.49s and 13.92s. The jumping duo of seniors Jared Kerr and Antwan Dickerson again went 1-2 in the long jump, 7.52m to 7.27m, respectively..
Also noteworthy, junior sprinter Kahmari Montgomery ran his first race since competing at the NCAA Indoor Championships. He finished third in the men’s 400m with a time of 47.10s.
