North Texas Daily

For the first time since the indoor Conference USA championship meet in February, the North Texas track and field team returned to track, this time at Texas Christian University to open outdoor season against 10 other schools from across the country.

After spending the past three weeks training, two Mean Green athletes finished their competitions breaking school records. Javier Lopez-Ibarra threw the javelin 66.55 meters, while Bailey Ashmore pole vaulted 3.96 meters.

Both of them finished the night with first place medals on a night where they set school-records were set. Head coach Carl Sheffield was impressed with the pair outing.

“We set a couple records in the pole vault and men’s javelin,” Head coach Carl Sheffield said. “I think they were a little ahead of where they thought they were. They had a good couple week of training, Baylie Ashmore continues to improve every year [and] Javier Lopez is also doing well.”

Along with those two, North Texas had a couple other athletes who received recognition. Freshman Haley Walker ended up with a fourth-place finish throwing the discus 47.05 meters. Sophmore Kristyn Archuleta continued her dominance from indoor season and finished the night placing first in the javelin event where she made a throw of 48.54 meters.

In the 1500 meters event, North Texas had a strong showing from three of their runners Mike Lowe, Florian Lussy and Tim Jones finished placing second, third and fourth. The women’s 4×100-meter relay team finished with a time of 45.66 and gave them a fourth-place finish.

In the end, Sheffield views the meet at TCU as a success considering how far they have come.

“I think it was a good meet overall,” Sheffield said. “We started off a lot farther ahead than we were last year from that standpoint it was pretty good. We had three weeks that we had to train for outdoors, so we got so that allowed us to really focus our thoughts and training. I think we were ready.”

Despite the successful showing by many members of the team, Sheffield says there’s always room for improvement.

“We have to get better preparing for Conference USA,” Sheffield said. “One of our goals is to have more first-round NCAA qualifiers. If we do that we think we will have more people higher on the performance list in Conference USA.”

Next up: North Texas will participate in the Bobby Lane Invitational hosted by University of Texas-Arlington on March 23-24.

Featured image: Courtesy: Rick Yeatts Photography/ Colin Mitchell