COURT GABLES, Fla. - Senior Racheal Somoye (Houston, Texas), showed out at Cobb Stadium, as the Texas A&M-Kingsville track and field program wrapped up day one of competition on Friday at the Hurricane Alumni Invitational.
Somoye logged a third-place finish in the hammer throw as her third toss of the day was good for 57.70m (189-04) as she bested 18 Division-I competitors. This continues Somoye's string of success, as she currently owns the second-best mark in the NCAA and has cleared the provisional qualifying mark in every event she has entered.
Meanwhile, junior Madeleine Maltais (Corpus Christi, Texas) reached provo distance for the third consecutive meet as she tossed the javelin 44.15m (144-10). The Tuloso-Midway H.S. product placed fourth after landing all six throws without fouling. She bested a slew of Division-I athletes as well, including professional athlete Marilyn Nwawulor who was competing for Great Britain.
Wrapping up the day for the women's squad, senior LaGae Brigance (Houston, Texas) took sixth in the high jump as she cleared a bar of 1.66m (5-05.25) on her first attempt. Brigance's mark was inches off her season best of 1.70m (5-7), which currently sits 11th on the national leaderboard.
The Hogs put forth a pair of strong performances in the men's hammer throw with junior Jorge Rios (Port Lavaca, Texas) and redshirt sophomore Andrew Perez (Taft, Texas) placing fifth and eighth, respectively. Rios launched the hammer 47.52m (155-10) on his fifth throw, while Perez's first toss landed at 44.93m (47-05).
A trio of multi-event specialists competed in both the javelin and pole vault, with sophomore Johnathon Harper (Lorena, Texas) earning a silver medal in the pole vault clearing a height of 4.70m (15-05) and sophomore Dean Wallace (Geronimo, Texas) finishing fourth after turning in a 4.25m (13-11.25) on the vault.
Slinging the javelin 52m (170-07) and leading the way for the Javelinas in the event was junior Valentin Charles (Rennes, France), who reached the mark on his fifth attempt.
Just behind him in 10th was Harper who reached 49.02m (160-10) on his first toss of the contest, with Wallace finishing 12th at a distance of 47.77m (156-09), also on his first attempt.
Competition will resume tomorrow at 2 p.m., with redshirt senior Richard Cervantes (Mission, Texas) taking on the discus.
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