Members of the UH track team competed in three individual and two team events at the 2008 Men’s and Women’s NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Despite their previous success at the Midwest Regional, the competitors returned without any medals.
Only two Cougars advanced to the semifinals at the NCAA meet. On Thursday, junior Seun Adigun placed 15th in the 100-meter hurdles preliminaries by finishing in 13.39 seconds, a new personal best. In Friday’s semifinals, Adigun finished in 13.70 seconds, a placement that did not qualify her for the finals.
Also on Thursday, all-region freshman Tyrone Carrier advanced to the semifinals, recording a 20.96-second, 14th-place finish in the men’s 200-meter dash preliminary round.
Although he earned the silver medal in the event at the Midwest Regional in April, Carrier’s finish of 21.30 seconds in the semifinals did not take him to the finals of the NCAA championships.
All-Region standout sophomore Jason Perez, the C-USA champion in the men’s 400-meter hurdles, competed in the event on Wednesday, but finished 23rd in 52.1 seconds, failing to qualify for the semifinals.
Houston did not fare any better in the team events. Although two women’s teams qualified for the NCAA championships by competing well at the Midwest Regional, neither team duplicated their performance at the championships.
In Houston’s first event of the meet, junior Dayo Ogunniyi, sophomore Quin’shundolyn McPherson, freshman Kayln Floyd and Adigun finished tenth in the field in 44.63 seconds in the preliminaries of the women’s 4 x100 relay. Although faster than their qualifying time at the Midwest Regional, it was not fast enough to move on at the NCAA Championships.
The Cougars wrapped up the competition with the 4 x 400-meter relay team of McPherson, Floyd, freshman Candyce Cross and junior LaNeeka Allen. The Cougars finished in 3:42.02 in the preliminaries and did not reach the finals despite finishing sixth in the event at the Midwest Regional.
