Sports
 

Two Cougars head to World Junior Champs

By Matt Cooper
The Daily Cougar

Two UH athletes were recently named Verizon All Americans and will be competing for international recognition at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Junior Championships, which begin today and run through July 18 in Grosseto, Italy.

Freshman sprinter Cary LaCour and football signee Ivory Williams qualified for spots on the USA Junior National Team with second-place finishes at the USA Junior National Championships in June. Team spots were only available to the top two finishers in each event, and all-American honors were given to the top eight finishers.

"Both (LaCour and Williams) are talented young men," Leroy Burrell, head track and field coach for UH, said. He predicted LaCour and Williams would do well and said he thinks they have a strong chance to earn medals.

Coming in second at the junior nationals in the 200 meters, LaCour finished with his personal best allowable time of 20.99 seconds. His best overall time was a wind-aided 20.65 seconds in May at the Tom Tellez Invitational.

LaCour hails from Humble and was a three-time state qualifier. He finished second in the 2003 University Interscholastic League State Championships with a time of 21.03 in the 200. LaCour also ran the anchor leg on Humble's 4 x 400-meter relay team and finished seventh in the 100-meter with a time of 10.72.

Williams finished second at the junior nationals in the 100 with a wind-aided time of 10.30. He boasted the fastest qualifying time in the preliminary rounds of the 100-meter dash: 10.25 seconds.

Williams is a football signee hailing from Beaumont Central High School. 

He was UIL Class 4A State Champion earlier this year in the 100 and 200 with official times of 10.33 and 21.38, respectively.

Burrell said LaCour and Williams will compete in the World Junior Championships. Williams will run the 100 and LaCour will run the 200 and possibly the 4x400 relay.

For more information and results from the World Junior Championships, visit www.usatf.org.
 

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