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April 20, 2007 > Sports > Solares wins mile, C-USA Athlete of the Week honors

Solares wins mile, C-USA Athlete of the Week honors

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

The men’s track and field team got some good weather for the first time in a while, and it showed in their individual performances. Senior Pablo Solares won yet again at the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational last Friday and Saturday in Los Angeles, Calif. He came within less than a second of breaking the four-minute mile, missing it by just 0.86 seconds, but the time was still good enough to win by more than two seconds. The victory was good enough for Conference USA to name him its men’s track and field Athlete of the Week Tuesday.

Solares’ time at the L.A. meet is one of the ten fastest times in the world this year. Head coach Jon Warren (Jones ‘88) said he would have done even better if the competition had paced him better.

“Pablo won fairly easily,” Warren said. “If he had any competition, then he would have been sub-four. No one came within 15 to 20 yards of him. As it is, though, that’s a top-ten time in the world this year.”

Freshman Simon Bucknell took the 1,500 meters, winning with a personal-best time of 3 minutes, 50.20 seconds. The finish was much close than Solares’ — less than two seconds separated first from fifth — but Bucknell said it was the best race he has run all outdoor season.

“I sat through the race a lot, feeling comfortable all the way,” Bucknell said. “I didn’t make any quick decisions that led to a downfall. I just moved up to a good time. … I think the way I did it in L.A. is as close to perfect as I could get.”

Outside of Bucknell, two other Owls scored personal-bests in the distance events. On the first day of competition, sophomore Aaron Robson placed second in the 5,000 by running 14:18.27 and sophomore Justin Maxwell was second in the 10,000 with a time of 31:28.02, both personal bests. Warren said he enjoyed seeing the individual success.

“It was a great meet,” Warren said. “We won the mile, won the 1,500, got second in the 5k, and there were huge jumps in time [from previous meets]. I think liking the personal bests is a lot to like. It was our best meet outdoors by far. We had a few clunkers in there, but they’ll be fixed.”

Not every Owl went solely to Los Angeles. Senior Luke Stadel competed in the Mount San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, Calif. April 13-14, throwing 176 feet in the discus. Warren said he sent Stadel to the Mt. SAC meet because he wanted to take advantage of the area’s typically strong winds. This year, however, the winds were fairly calm and had little to no effect on Stadel’s performance. Stadel also competed at L.A., finishing eighth in the discus with a mark of 175-10 and throwing 55-10.5 in the shot put to finish tied for sixth.

Right now, the Owls are beginning to reach the home stretch in their preparation for the Conference USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships, which will take place at the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium May 10-12. They still have a few meets to go before that weekend, though. Rice will first run in the Texas Twilight in Austin tomorrow, followed by the Rice Twilight at the Rice Track/Soccer Stadium April 26. The Houston Invitational is scheduled for May 5, but since that is during finals period it is unlikely that any significant number of athletes will compete in that meet.

Junior Omar Wright figures to be a key component to the Owls’ C-USA push in the high jump. With Devon Fanfair redshirting this season, Wright, who barely missed out on All-American honors last year, will have to score big if Rice is to have any shot at an outdoor title. Unfortunately for the Owls, though, heading into last weekend Wright had not seen any action since the season-opening TSU Relays March 30 thanks to adverse weather conditions. Warren said he would have liked to have Wright jump at L.A., but because the meet did not fit in with his training schedule, it was not wise to do so. Wright is now learning to use a ten-step run up instead of his previous eight steps in order to get better results on his jumps, and he was not ready to try out the new technique in meet competition last weekend.

Warren said he was not worried about Wright, despite the lack of action, because he has easily qualified for the NCAA tournament each of the past two years.

“It’s good and bad,” Warren said. “You want a little bit more as far as looking at a conference level, but last year he went to nationals, so you look at the full length of the season, assuming he’s qualifying for nationals, then he’s going until mid-June, so he’ll be fine as long as they don’t cancel another meet.”

Realistically, Rice will need a miracle to finish any higher than second at the C-USA meet. The University of Houston has the strongest and deepest team in the conference right now, and with the University of Texas of El Paso redshirting a lot of athletes this year in preparation for a big year next year, the Cougars should face little opposition in several of the sprints and the field events.

But Warren would not completely rule out the possibility that Rice could pull off a surprise upset.

“If you want to go out on the full extreme that Rice could win the meet, then we would have to beat UH in every area that UTEP doesn’t butt heads with them, and then we would need UTEP to beat them in areas where they don’t beat us too bad, and then we need a lot of [other] help,” Warren said. “If everything fell into place, then it’s not unfathomable that we would prevail, but it is highly unlikely.”

End of article

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