Rohith Nandagiri
Staff Writer
Injuries to key members of the UH track team will allow other members of the team to step forward.
Dennis Darling and Michael Quintanilla are both out for this weekend's action. Darling competes in the 200-meter and 400-meter events while Quintanilla is the team's top pole vaulter. The women's side will be without Lisa-May Duffus who usually competes in the 55-meter and hurdles.
The UH track program, consistently one of the nation's best, will compete at Rice University this weekend in an outdoor only competition.
The women will compete today and tomorrow in the Rice Bayou Classic and the men will be involved in the Meeting of the Minds.
The Bayou Classic includes Rice, Harvard, Texas Southern University, and Stephen F. Austin.
Sophomore Jenny Adams, the 1997 Conference USA Outdoor Female Athlete of the Year and Freshman of the Year, will compete in the long jump, 100-meter and 200-meter dash.
Sophomore Alisha Broussard will compete in the 200-meter and the triple jump.
On the men's side, action will be light today with only the 3000-meter steeplechase and the 5000-meter race. Tomorrow however, events start at 8:30 in the morning.
Junior William Howell, in his first outdoor season with UH, will compete in the 200-meter race and expects good things.
"I feel I should run a good time. Hopefully, (my time will be) around 22 flat or 21.8 (seconds)."
Sophomore Indhika Wijay will also run in the 110-meter hurdles and the 400-meter hurdles. He will try to improve on last season's best in the 400 of 58.00 seconds.
Sophomore Karim Alston, the Freshman of the Year in last season's C-USA outdoor championships, will only run in the 400-meter. He has a simple goal for himself.
"I want to beat my personal record and get around 48.1 seconds." Currently, his best is 48.19.
John Davis, arguably the nation's best in the shot put, will also be in action tomorrow at 9:30 a.m.
He was cautiously optimistic about his chances.
"I am going to do pretty well. Hopefully, I will wake up in time," Davis jokingly said.
He recently won third place in the national competition held earlier this month in the indoor season.
Head track coach Tom Tellez explained that his team is trying to get healthy.
"We're pretty battered and beaten up. We will not be running a lot of kids this weekend, but hopefully by next weekend we will be at full strength. Our goal is to win our conference outdoors (May 14-16) and then do well at nationals (June 3-6)."