The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/sports/2006/03/03/solares_walsh_win_cusa

March 3, 2006 > Sports > Solares, Walsh win at C-USA title meet

Solares, Walsh win at C-USA title meet

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

Junior Pablo Solares set the record for the Conference USA indoor mile, senior Ryan Walsh won the heptathlon and redshirt freshman Tyler Whitham won the pole vault to lead the men’s track and field team to a third-place finish at the C-USA Indoor Track and Field Championships. Whitham was named C-USA Freshman of the Year after the meet, held Friday and Saturday at Yeoman Fieldhouse at the University of Houston.

Solares’ victory in the mile was hardly a surprise — he entered the meet with the top time in the conference — but he won the mile using a different strategy. Instead of trying to maintain a lead for most of the race, he stayed close to the pack for the first six laps and then ran a 58-second split on the final two laps to win by 4.6 seconds over Mircea Bogdan of the University of Texas-El Paso.

The indoor season is now over for most of the Owls, but Solares will compete at a last-chance meet in an attempt to qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships March 11-12 in Fayetteville, Ark. Most of the Owls will have a month off before the first meet of the outdoor season, the Texas Southern University Relays March 24-25.

The surprise in the mile at the C-USA championships came from sophomore Charles Hampton, who finished in 4 minutes, 18.96 seconds to finish fifth. Hampton usually runs longer-distance races, such as the 3,000 and 5,000 meters, which require better pacing. By the time he raced the mile, Hampton had already placed sixth in the 3,000, finishing in 8:31.45. He would later run fourth in the 5,000, 3.24 seconds behind senior Marcel Hewamudalige, who finished third.

Head coach Jon Warren (Jones ‘88) said Hampton’s finish was a bonus, given that he was not racing in his best event.

“In indoor, … the 5,000 was his primary event, and anything after that was just gravy,” Warren said. “He ran a good 5,000, [and] then he came back in the mile just to say, ‘What the heck. Go for it and let’s see what comes about.’”

Solares also played a key role in the Owls’ two relay teams. He ran the mile leg of the distance medley relay, running a 4:01.9 split to make up a 12-second difference against UH’s Calum Neff and help the team finish second. And Solares ran the anchor leg of a 4x400-meter relay team that included Whitham, senior Eric Spear and senior Bahnsen Miller. That relay was the last event of the meet, and Warren said the timing contributed to the relay team’s fifth-place finish.

“I thought we could do a little bit better [in the 4x400], but by that point in the meet, we had some nicks and cuts on some guys,” Warren said. “That’s the risk you take in a conference meet. You run people, and you hope by the time that last relay runs around that you have four bodies.”

Walsh won the heptathlon easily, beating second-place Jarrett Flax of UH by 400 points. Walsh was ahead by just 29 points after day one due to a fourth-place finish in the high jump, but his personal-best mark of 15 feet, 9 inches in the pole vault on the second day gave him an insurmountable lead. He finished the heptathlon by winning the 1,000 meters in 3:00.50.

Despite the easy victory, Walsh said he was disappointed with his performance in the 1,000.

“It’s one of my strongest events, and since the field wasn’t really running the 1,000 hard because they couldn’t gain any position, it really hurt my own performance,” Walsh said. “I’m not a front-runner. I’m a chaser, … so if I were to run a normal 1,000 time, I would have had at least another hundred points or so.”

After finishing the heptathlon, Walsh competed in the pole vault along with Whitham and freshman Curtis Porter. Battling an ankle injury suffered on his first attempt, Walsh cleared 14 feet, 11 seconds to place fourth. Whitham won after being the only competitor to clear 15-7, and Porter finished sixth.

“Most people would’ve been out — they wouldn’t have been able to go on [if they were] limping badly,” Warren said. “But Ryan got back up, got a pole, missed on his second attempt but made it on his third attempt. … That was the gutsy move of the meet.”

Whitham missed out on second place in the 60-meter hurdles by two-thousandths of a second. He competed in the heptathlon during the indoor season but not at the conference meet, and he will train for the decathlon in the outdoor season.

“I didn’t do the heptathlon because I had the flu the whole week before, so I’ve got to get all of my fitness back from before … so I can compete well in the decathlon,” Whitham said.

UTEP won the C-USA indoor title with 167 points, edging out UH’s 153. Rice’s 108 points were good for a distant third.

Rice’s third-place finish was mainly the result of only 19 athletes competing for the Owls, compared to 24 for the Cougars. UTEP entered even fewer athletes — 14 — but accumulated points in a limited number of events. Mickael Hanany, the meet’s high scorer, was the only Miner to score in the field events, but his three victories — in the high jump, long jump and triple jump — accounted for 30 points, allowing UTEP to keep pace with the 46 points scored by six Rice athletes in the field events. Hanany later received the C-USA Performance of the Meet award.

UTEP also took the top four spots in the 3,000 meters, scoring 29 points in that event alone. By contrast, Rice scored four points in the 3,000 despite placing two runners in the top eight.

In other events, senior Jason Powell and junior Devon Fanfair finished second and third in the triple jump, posting respective marks of 50-1.75 and 48-6. Senior Luke Stadel took third place in the shot put, throwing 54-6. Sophomore Colby Keithan finished the 800 meters in 1:57.05, good for seventh.

End of article

Back to top