Houston, Texas – The Tiger men's and women's track & field teams sent a select number of student-athletes to the Victor Lopez Classic on Friday evening, hosted by Rice University.
Trinity competed in the men's and women's 1500-meter run, the men's and women's 5,000-meter run, and the men's 3,000-meter steeplechase. The 16 different Tiger runners set 11 new personal records on Friday.
Ellie Catron (Spring, Texas / The Woodlands Christian) sported the best finish of the evening for the Tigers, finishing third in the 1500 with a new PR of 4:50.44. Madison Habeck (Lake Jackson, Texas / Clute Brazoswood) set a new personal best by nearly 11 seconds with her seventh-place finish in the event as well.
Sophomore Diego Flores (San Antonio, Texas / Great Hearts Monte Vista North) beat his PR in the steeplechase by nearly seven seconds, finishing seventh overall with a time of 9:55.20 in just his second attempt at the steeple.
Sophomore Joseph Herlin (Ft. Worth, Texas / Boswell) led eight Tiger men's runners in the 1500, finishing seventh place overall with a new PR that is also the third-fastest time this season in the event. Junior Ben Whittemore (Georgetown, Texas / Georgetown) also finished in the top 10 less than three seconds behind his teammate in ninth place, missing his personal record by less than a second.
All four first-years competing in the event set new personal bests, including Marco Jonsson (Sugar Land, Texas / Dulles) with an 11th-place finish and William Welden (Atlanta, Ga. / Holy Innocents) who finished in 14th. Jared Gallagher (Ft. Worth, Texas / Southwest Christian) and Ben Kim (Austin, Texas / Anderson) also established new personal records in the event.
Sophomore Jacob Ontiveros (El Paso, Texas / El Paso) joined the PR party with a new record of his own, while fellow sophomore Rushil Desai (Houston, Texas / St. Pius X) just missed his previous fastest time by less than two seconds.
Senior Ardi Saunders (Coppell, Texas / New Tech) broke their personal best time by more than six seconds in the 5K, while sophomore Ryan Rager-Aguiar (Spring Hill, Texas / Independence) finished under 16 minutes in the men's 5K for the first time in his career. Elaine Kaster (Lewisville, Texas / Founders Classical Academy) was the top Tiger finisher in the event in 13th place, while both senior Joshua Morgan (Austin, Texas / Saint Stephen's Episcopal School) and first-year Eli Karg (Friendswood, Texas / Friendswood) finished in the top 25.
Up Next
The remainder of the Trinity men's and women's teams will be in action at the Texas Lutheran University D3 Challenge in Seguin, Texas, on Saturday.
