SAN ANTONIO – Trinity's men's and women's track & field teams will open up the indoor season with a select group of student-athletes competing on Friday at the BSC Panther Indoor Icebreaker, hosted by Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama.
The meet will be the only competition for the fall semester for the Tigers teams, which will break for Finals and the holidays the rest of the month. Both Trinity men's and women's teams will resume the indoor season in January, competing in three more indoor meets before beginning the outdoor season. The Tigers will host the Trinity Invitational March 4-5 to ring in the outdoor season.
Preview: BSC Panther Indoor Icebreaker
Trinity will send six males and six females to the season opener in Birmingham, participating in mostly running events. The meet gets started at 9:00 a.m. on Friday, with the final events coming well after 4:00 p.m.
Joy Areola (Tomball, Texas / Rosehill Christian) will be among the first Trinity athletes to compete, jumping in the women's long jump at 9:00 a.m. Areola finished second in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships last season. She was also the SCAC Champion in the triple jump last year, earning United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Region honors in the event. Areola will compete in the triple jump at 1:00 p.m. on Friday. Her best outdoor jump in 2022 was 11.83 meters to take over third place in school history.
Prelims for the 60-meter hurdles will also begin at 9:00 a.m. for the women, followed by the women's 60-meter dash prelims at 9:30 a.m., and the men's 60-meter dash prelims at 10:00 a.m.
Hayley Huck (Prosper, Texas / Prosper) and
Avery Puig (Laredo, Texas / J.B. Alexander) will represent the Tiger women in the hurdles, while Puig and
Danya Selber (Edinburg, Texas / Robert Vela) will also be in the 60-meter race.
Jalen Leonce (Allen, Texas / Jesuit College Prep) will be in the men's 60-meter run for Trinity's men. Finals will begin at 11:00 a.m. for those that quality in the hurdles.
Justin Johnson (Houston, Texas / Manvel) is set to compete in the men's 60-meter hurdles, with prelims beginning after the semifinals for the previously mentioned running events, at 11:45 a.m. The 60 hurdles finals are scheduled for 1:10 p.m., followed by the men's and women's 60-meter finals. Johnson won both the 110-meter and 400-meter hurdles events at last year's SCAC Championships
Grant Bishop (Geronimo, Texas / Navarro),
Nicolas Ladreyt (Santa Monica, Calif. / Harvard-Westlake), and
Josue Parra (Niles, Ill. / Maine East) will all compete in the men's 400-meter dash, while
Taylor Kotfas (Blanco, Texas / Blanco) and
CC Gray (Scottsdale, Ariz. / Notre Dame Prep) will both race the event for the Tiger women's team. The men get the event started at 3:00 p.m., followed by the women's competition. Gray earned All-SCAC honors last year in the 400.
Following the men's and women's 800-meter run at 4:00 p.m., the meet will move to a rolling schedule. Leonce will be Trinity's only runner in that event, which will be followed by the men's and women's 200-meter dash. Bishop,
Ethan Gilmore (Houston, Texas / Lamar), and Johnson will all run the 200-meters for the men, while Huck and Selber both compete in their second events of the day in the women's race.
The Distance Medley Relay will precede the final event of the meet for both the men's and women's teams. Trinity will have a men's and women's team competing in the 4x400-meter relay to close out the day's action. The men's entries are Gilmore, Ladreyt, Parra, Johnson, and Bishop, with one of them serving as an alternate. The women will choose from Kotfas, Gray, Huck, Puig, and Selber for the last race of the meet. Gilmore was part of the 4x400 relay team that earned Outdoor All-Region honors from the USTFCCCA in 2021, while he also teamed up with Parra and Johnson in last year's relay team that won the SCAC title. Gray and Kotfas made up half of last season's 4x400 relay team that finished second at the conference meet to earn All-SCAC recognition.
Looking Ahead: FasTrak Opener (1/21)
Trinity returns to the track in late January, competing at the FasTrak Opener at the University of Houston. It will be the only meet of the month, beginning a string of three straight indoor meets in just under a month. The Tigers will also compete at the FasTrak Collegiate Challenge at Houston on February 11, followed by the Matador Qualifier hosted by Texas Tech University on February 17, in Lubbock, Texas.
