Texas State track and field will open its 202324 indoor season this Friday at the Leonard Hilton Memorial Invitational in Houston, Texas.
The Bobcats return to an indoor track for the first time since the Sun Belt Indoor Track and Field Championships in Feb. 2023, where the women’s team placed third and the men’s team finished fourth.
The men’s team looks to build off last year’s fourth-place finish with the help of its two indoor conference champions, Dominick Yancy (200 meters) and Daniel Harrold (60-meter hurdles).
Yancy and Harrold both hold the indoor conference meet records for their respective events.
Some other notable returning athletes for the men’s squad will be conference indoor medalists Simon Thor (pole vault and heptathlon), Chris Preddie (long jump), Brian West and Taahir Kelly. West and Kelly, who along with Yancy and Avery Veiseh, took home the 4x400-meters relay title and set the 2023 Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championships with a meet-record time of 3:10.71.
The Bobcats women’s team is also looking to build off of last year’s third-place finish despite losing Sedrickia Wynn, the Sun Belt indoor champion in the 60 meters and 200 meters.
The women’s team returns Mathilde Canet, who took home the indoor title in the pentathlon, Lauryn Small who placed second in the shot put and multiple other Sun Belt Conference Indoor Championship finalists such as Melanie Duron (shot put), Carly Watts (shot put and weight throw) and Elisabet Runarsdottir (weight throw).
There are also some new faces to the track and field team that will make their debuts this Friday. Kerrington Johnson joins the women’s team as a graduate transfer from Wofford and is a threetime Southern Conference champion in the 60-meter hurdles.
Aliyah Simmons will also make her debut. Simmons is a former national champion in the 800 meters and a regional champion in the 600 meters at Indian Hills junior college.
The Leonard Hill Invitational will take place at University of Houston’s Yeoman Fieldhouse, with the field events beginning at 9 a.m. and the running events starting at noon.
The meet will be streamed live on the University of Houston’s website and can also be followed via live results.
