SAN ANGELO, Texas – The West Texas A&M Buffs and Lady Buffs place 12 student-athletes atop the LSC Championship podium on day one after five events. In all five events, WT took first place, three in second place and four in third place.
There were six preliminary events in which at least two WT athletes qualified in each event for finals (1500m, 100m hurdles, 110m hurdles and 200m). The Lady Buffs took an early team lead with 70 points on day one with the Buffs sitting in first as a team as well with 50 points.
HAMMER THROW
The Lady Buffs made the first podium of the day with
Meadow Gallentine taking gold with a throw of 48.49m and teammate
Jada Sewell took silver with just .10 away from Gallentine at 48.69. Combined they brought in 23 team points.
Luke Holcombe placed third in the men's hammer throw with a personal best 53.43m and gave the Buffs their first 6 points.
TRIPLE JUMP
Moving to the jumps,
Miriam Zanovello took first place with her personal best distance at 12.79m. Zanovello also took first at the LSC Indoor Championships this year as well. She added 10 points to help the Lady Buffs take a dominating lead.
Freshman
Manuel Cuesta took gold in the men's triple jump at 14.89m. His teammate,
Savion DeGraffe took third at 14.28m. This is both of their first time competing at the LSC Championships. Combined they added 16 team points to bring the team total to 22. At this point in the meet, the Buffs were in second place behind Lubbock Christian who had 23 team points.
10,000m
The distance squad has podium swept again. In both the men's and women's LSC Championship event all spots were taken by WT. This also happened this season at the LSC Indoor Championships.
For the Lady Buffs, National Champion
Florance Uwajeneza took first in 37 minutes, 5 seconds.
Elise Leveel for silver in 37 minutes, 12 seconds and
Lexi Maul for bronze in 37 minutes, 16 seconds. The Lady Buffs put a strong hold on first place as a team with 70 points. Angelo State is currently in second with 21 team points.
For the Buffs, national leader
William Amponsah took gold in 31 minutes, 3 seconds with teammates
Enrico Oddone for silver in 31 minutes, 15 seconds and
Adrian Legarreta with bronze in 31 minutes, 29 seconds.
Jay Hall finished in fifth. The Buffs team total skyrocketed up to 50 points to take a dominating lead after the first day. Lubbock Christian stayed in second place with 23 points.
MULTIS
WT has five multis competing over two days. As it stands for the Decathlon,
Allen Henderson is in second with 3,645 points after finishing first in the 100m (10.84), the high jump (1.99m) and the 400m (49.61). Henderson has also run a leg in the Buffs No. 3 ranked 4x400 relay team.
David Richards is right behind in third with 3,643 points. Richards later competed in the men's 110m hurdles where he qualified for finals on Saturday.
The heptathletes are
Laiten Greeson,
Elliot Harrison and
Maryn Noble. Greeson stand in first with 3,286 points, Harrison in sixth with 2,843 points and Noble in eighth with 2,578 points. All three later competed in the women's 100m hurdles with Greeson finishing first in the preliminaries with a personal best time of 13.74 seconds and marking the 7
th best time in WT history. She is the only other athlete to place on the top-10 in the event with Sharon Kwarula owning all other nine records since 2015.
COMING UP
The Buffs and Lady Buffs will compete tomorrow for day two of the Lone Star Conference Championships. The decathlon starts at 10:30 a.m. CT and the heptathlon right after at 11:00 a.m. Field events will kick off at 3:00 p.m. with the discus throw and running events start at 6:30 p.m.
Live steaming is available on LSC Network and live stats are on GoBuffsGo.com.
