Mississippi State’s track and field teams racked up several awards while competing in this weekend’s Texas Relays in Austin, Texas.”The men’s distance medley did well,” women’s track head coach Al Schmidt said. “We had a few disappointments, but they were outweighed by the positives of the day. We just keep excelling. We were very happy with the meet and the outcome.”
Mississippi State junior Marrissa Harris ran 13.48 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles to break the MSU school record that was previously set during her freshman campaign.
“We always have certain goal going into a competition, of course No. 1 being to win,” Schmidt said.
En route to her record-breaking and personal-best performance, Harris took sixth place overall and picked up her second NCAA regional qualifying mark of the season in the event.
All nine finalists in the 100-meter hurdles final earned NCAA regional qualifying standards.
In the men’s 4×100-meter relay, the squad of sophomore Kendall May, junior John Bailey, senior Jamil Hubbard and freshman O’Neal Wilder finished fifth with a time of 39.75.
For their combined effort, the combo earned their fifth NCAA regional qualifying standard of the season.
Continuing MSU’s relay action was the women’s 4×200-meter relay.
The foursome of sophomore Bridgett Rose, juniors Gabrielle Dillon and Harris and sophomore LaQuinta Aaron recorded a time of 1:36.34 to haul in sixth place.
With their time, they are now second place all-time in the 4×200-meter category at MSU.
During the men’s distance medley competition, freshmen Matthew Cameron and Emanuel Mayers, senior Golden Coachman and freshman Ben Blakenship paced themselves to a fourth-place finish with their time of 9:48.34.
In MSU’s final event of the day, the 4×400-meter relay, the quartet of senior Chris Woods, Hubbard, Bailey and Wilder captured fifth place with a time of 3:05.28.
With their time, they also earned a new NCAA regional qualifying standard.
“The 4×100 and 4×400 came out in the top 10, which is very important,” Schmidt said. “The 4×800 came out in the top three in the country, which is very good.”
Men’s head coach Steve Dudley was also impressed with the strong showing of both teams.
“There were really only two negatives for the day, one being the men not running well in the 4×200, which I know we can do well at,” Dudley said. “We have the rest of the season to improve that though.