Track and Field punches even more tickets to NCAA Championships

Published by David Wiechmann/Texas SID on May 28th, 2016

Complete Results | Texas Post-Meet Notes: Saturday | Friday

LAWRENCE, Kan. – Texas Track & Field carried its momentum from Friday's action at the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds into Saturday's action and came away with nine more tickets punched for the NCAA Championships in two weeks to. That brings the total spots in Eugene, Oregon, earned this week to 22, plus one more already in for the heptathlon means the Longhorns will have 23 entries at the championship meet.

Weather forced changes to the schedule and qualifying format of the meet earlier in the week and Texas Head Coach Mario Sategna said he was proud of how his team handled the unexpected difficulties.

"Overall as a program we were obviously thrown some curveballs here with the weather and having to completely revamp the schedule," Sategna said. "I think our staff did a great job of getting everybody prepared. It's about beating people head-to-head and they handled it first-class and things look really strong going into the national meet."

The Longhorns opened the day well on the track with both the men's and women's 4x100 meter relay teams advancing to the championship meet. Texas was one of only seven schools in the West region to qualify all four of its relay teams for the NCAA West Preliminary Rounds.

Morolake Akinosun ran a strong anchor leg for the women in the first track event of the day to come from behind and finish third in the heat and secure an automatic bid to Eugene. The Texas team of Teahna Daniels, Courtney Okolo, Zola Golden and Akinosun ran 44.64 seconds.

The men followed suit by running 39.62 seconds and finishing third in their heat with Charles Anumnu, Senoj-Jay Givans, Zack Bilderback and Aldrich Bailey Jr. getting the baton around safely. That made Texas one of only four schools to advance both 4x100 relays to Eugene out of the West.