ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Senior All-Americans Richard Garrett Jr. and Tyler Williamson won league titles in the shot put and long jump, respectively, on Friday and the UTSA men's track and field team sits in third place following five scored events at this weekend's Western Athletic Conference Indoor Championships.
Garrett Jr. shattered his own program record in the shot with his winning put of 65-9 ½ (20.05m), which came on his fifth attempt of the night. He bettered UT Arlington's Bozidar Antunovic by one-and-a-quarter inch for his third consecutive conference championship. The measurement added nearly four feet to his previous mark of 62-11 ¼ (18.81m) established two weeks ago at the Armory Collegiate Invitational and he now stands third on the national leaderboard. The Garland native has won a total of 10 gold medals during his illustrious four-year career.
Meanwhile, Williamson led a contigent of four Roadrunners that netted points in the long jump with his season-long winning leap of 24-3. It, too, was his third straight league title and it helped UTSA score a combined 16 points in the event. Roscoe Robinson (23-7 ½/7.20m), Ronson Small (PR 23-2 ¾/7.08m) and Jonas Gutierrez (PR 23-2 ½/7.07m) placed sixth through eighth, respectively.
Their two championships pushed the program's combined indvidual/relay count to 64, 40 of which have come under the direction of 11th-year head coach Aaron Fox.
The Roadrunners scored 42 points on Friday and they only trail meet leader UT Arlington (61) and Utah State (43) in the team standings.
UTSA just missed a third gold medal in the final event of the night.
The distance medley relay foursome of Nathan Collier, Jumarcus Shelvin, Brady Hand and Mike Medrano passed the baton in 10:11.94 and that was less than two seconds shy of the winning time of 10:10.02 posted by Utah State.
The Roadrunners also received three points each from Andrew Akens in the shot put (PR 55-2 ¼/16.82/sixth) and Ryan Roberts in the heptathlon (4,760 points/sixth) and two more by virtue Daniel Balbontin's seventh-place effort in the 5,000 meters (15:43.85).
UTSA also sent nine athletes into the running finals during preliminary heat competition.
The three-day meet concludes on Saturday.