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Sports

Cougars sweep both C-USA indoor titles

Head coach Burrel receives 7th Coach of the Year award, 
credits award to entire UH team

By Sam Khan Jr.
The Daily Cougar

There was success aplenty at the Yeoman Field House this weekend as both the UH men's and women's track and field teams completed a sweep of the Conference USA Indoor Championships on Saturday, marking the third sweep in UH history.

The men captured their third consecutive C-USA Indoor team title, while the women picked up their third in four years. UH also swept the indoor championships in 1998 and 2003, and in addition to their outdoor sweeps of 1998 and 2000, it marks the fifth sweep since UH joined C-USA. While the Cougars consistently shine in conference meets, head coach Leroy Burrel said he'd like to see that expand to national success.

"I'm really proud of the athletes; they've worked really hard to accomplish this," said Burrel, who won his seventh C-USA Indoor Coach of the Year award. "But I want us to think about larger goals, and I really do believe that our talent, our work ethic, our ability and our resources should allow us to compete at a higher level."

There wasn't much to dispute that UH could complete such a task Saturday, as the men ran away with their title with 166.5 points, way out of reach of second-place Texas Christian, which finished with 101. The Cougar men capped the meet by winning the final running event, the 4x400-meter relay, with a time of 3:15.11. And despite not even running the final relay event, the Lady Cougars finished ahead of second-place Charlotte 117-83.5.

Among the individual stars for the men was senior Ron Veillon, who came from seventh place at the start of Saturday to win his third consecutive C-USA indoor heptathlon with 5,134 points, beating out junior teammate Nicholas Garza who finished second with 5,105 and freshman teammate Jarrett Flax who finished fifth with 4,817.

"It wasn't looking too good (Friday)," Veillon said. "But (Saturday) I had personal bests in all three events and was able to come back and win."

Other individual winners for the UH men included senior Brandon Bray, who took the long jump; sophomore Tristian Whitley, who capture the high jump crown; and senior Andrew Carruthers, who defended his 60-meter hurdles title by running a C-USA indoor meet record of 7.81 seconds, beating his previous best of 7.93 set last year. 

In the pole vault, senior Tom Rusteberg, freshman Scott Duckworth and senior Jason Myers went one-two-three, and senior Kevin Watson tied for fourth, as they combined to grab 28.5 points for the Cougars.

And despite not winning on the weekend, junior Sesar Figueroa also had an impressive meet, finishing second in both the mile (4:09.43) and the 3000-meters (8:32.76) to TCU's Kip Kangogo, who won both events on his way to winning Athlete-of-the-Meet honors.

On the women's side, junior Cheryl Garner was the star among stars, winning both the 200-meters (23.79) and the 400-meters (54.43), squeaking by junior teammate Kiesha Howard (54.63) in the 400.

"It was amazing," Garner said. "I didn't know I was going to be able to do what I did. I just went out there and did what coach Burrel and coach Floyd (Heard) helped me work on this year."

Also grabbing titles this weekend for the women was senior Krystal Ward, who won the pentathlon and finished second in the high jump and senior Jasmin Jackson, who took the long jump crown as well as taking fifth in the 60-meter dash.

The Lady Cougars garnered many of their points with top-five finishes from the likes of Alicia Cave (second in the 60-meter hurdles), Caresir Hamilton (second in the triple jump), LeDedra Guy (third in the 60-meter dash), Nichole Brundage (third in the pentathlon), Shayla Bowman (fifth in the weight throw) and Tinisha Wesley (fifth in the shot put).

Ward expressed her pride for the all-around efforts of the team.

"I'm very proud of our team; we had a lot of personal bests," she said. "We've worked really hard all season. Everyone is passionate and we have a great coaching staff."

The men will begin to set their sights on the C-USA Outdoor Championships, which take place in May. After winning the cross country conference title in the fall and now the indoor conference title, they have the chance to win the triple crown, which no men's team has ever captured in C-USA history. Only Marquette's 1995-96 women's squad has been able to win it.

With that in mind, in addition to UH's goals for national success, Burrel made it clear he's glad to be adding more hardware to the trophy case -- and that it is a true team effort.

"It's really nice," Burrel said. "I'm really proud of my staff and the kids because we work really hard to try to identify kids that are going to help us do what we're trying to do. And the kids come in and do the work, and it makes me look pretty good -- but it's really all the people around me."
 

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