AUSTIN, Texas – The West Texas A&M No. 3 Lady Buffs and No. 18 Buffs distance teams start the Texas Relays in Austin, Texas off with a bang with two outdoor school records broken in the 5,000m races, seven personal record times and five WT Top-10 times ran. This was the first of three possible meet days for WT at the Texas Relays.
 
Senior Florance Uwajeneza and junior Harry Louradour each posted their best times in the 5,000-meter outdoor races for both the women's and men's inviational race set at the Mike A. Myers Track and Soccer Stadium in Austin. 
 
BREAKING RECORDS
Uwajeneza is on the cusp of breaking the 16-minute mark in the women's 5,000-meter as she came in at 16 minutes flat with 14 milliseconds. She held onto second from the start of the race and came up short against high school phenomenon Elizabeth Leachman who broke the high school national record running 15 minutes, 25 seconds in the same invitational event, breaking a record set in 2022. Uwajeneza was neck-in-neck with a UT athlete before UT took a five-yard lead with only six laps left to go. The Lady Buff wasn't about to let the gap grow as she came back and kept in stride with her opponent. She came to the finish line in second with 15 yards to spare behind her. 
 
Louradour ran right after the women's 5,000-meter race with teammates Enrico Oddone and Adrian Legarreta. The junior from Le Vigen, France paced the Buffs for the first five laps before making her ascent into the top-3 runners. He ran right beside an opponent from Harding for the next three laps before following suit of front runner and Texas Tech opponenet, Ernest Cheruiyot, who set barely missed out on the meet record. Louradour came away with a big lead on second and finished in under 14 minutes becoming the first Buff to ever do so in the outdoor season in the 5,000-meter race. He finished in 13 minutes, 57.7 seconds. This was the first time a Buff had placed in the outdoor 5,000m WT Top-10 times, and the fastest time ran since 2021 set by Ezekiel Kipchirchir. 
 
PERSONAL BESTS
Including Uwajenezas' and Louradours' times, WT had seven personal bests for the day. Starting off strong for the distance crew was transfer student Kalkidan Vincendeau who ran the women's 1500-meter in 4 minutes, 29.5 seconds and became the fourth fastest WT Lady Buff to do so. Following suit was Aziz Mohammed who in the men's 1500m ran it in 3 miuntes, 50.3 seconds and placed first in his heat. 
 
Joining Louradour in a personal best was teammate Adrian Legarreta who placed in the WT Top-10 for the first time in his career. Legarreta ran the 5,000-meter race in 14 minutes, 20.1 seconds coming in eighth overall. Enrico Oddone, while not running a personal best, did place sixth in 14 minutes, 18.2 seconds, and with Legarreta and Louradour did beat out all five UT athletes in the event. 
 
In the final races of the late night, Lexi Maul and Jay Hall each ran personal best times in the 10,000-meter race. Maul completed the 27 lap race in 36 minutes, 32.7 seconds and placed for the first time on the WT Top-10 charts coming in at sixth best time. Hall ran for sixth place in 30 minutes, 46.2 seconds. The graduate student beat his personal best time that was set back in 2019. 
 
NOTEABLE PERFORMANCES
The distance squad shined bright for WT tonight with three more WT Top-10 performances. Freshman Sarah Koomson finished sixth out of 22 competitors in the 5,000-meter and placed the third best time in WT history in 16 minutes, 25.2 seconds. Betty Bajika also placed in the WT Top-10 times in the same event finishing in 16 minutes, 49.6 seconds at ninth best for WT and finishing the 10,000-meter race in 36 minutes, 47.9 seconds was graduate student Olivia McLain who took eighth best WT time. Prince Mcabelo, although not a personal best time, did end up sixth in the men's 800-meter invitational where he was the only NCAA Division II athlete competing in a field of 14. Mcabelo finished in 1 minute, 51.6 seconds behind TCU competitors and professional runners including Mexico Olympian, Jesus Tonatiu Lopez, who took first overall. 
 
In the 400m hurdles, multi atheletes Elliot Harrison and Temitope Adenuga ran their season bests in the event with Harrison finishing in 1 minute, 3.07 seconds and Adenuga in 1 minute, 3.09 seconds. 
 
COMING UP 
The Buffs and Lady Buffs will compete for day two of the Texas Relays with the 4x100 women's relay kicking things off at 9:35 a.m. on the Mike A. Myers Track and Soccer Stadium in Austin, Texas. Fans can follow along via live results on gobuffsgo.com and live stream available on ESPN+.