Relays, Maswanganyi Advance to Saturday Finals

Friday, April 28

Austin, Texas

University of Houston

Texas Invitational

4/28/2023 3:30:00 PM | Track and Field

Cougars’ men’s 400-meter relay, both 1,600-meter relays advance to finals

PHILADELPHIA & AUSTIN, Texas – The University of Houston track and field 400-meter relay team will go for a four-peat on Saturday after running the fastest time in prelims at the Penn Relays on Friday. Both the men's and women's 1,600-meter relays and junior Shaun Maswanganyi advanced to Saturday's finals.

The 400-meter relay squad, which has not changed legs in six-straight meets, strung together four clean exchanges in the rain and gave anchor leg junior Shaun Maswanganyi plenty of room as he blitzed to the finish line in 39.81 seconds.

Sophomore Destiny Smith qualified for the final of the 100-meter hurdles on Saturday by running the fifth-fastest time in prelims. Smith's 13.77 second time was the fastest non-automatic qualifying time in the field.

Both the men's and women's 1,600-meter relay teams that Houston brought to the Penn Relays advanced to the final on Saturday. Both finished third in their respective heats and both finished with the seventh-fastest time heading to finals. The women ran 3:43.85 while the men ran 3:15.70.

Houston's final event of the day, the men's sprint medley relay (200-200-400-800) finished third overall at the Penn Relays. The squad of freshmen Aaron Bell and Ireon Brown, along with senior Trey Johnson and junior Lloyd Frilot ran 3:27.04, finishing third in the final heat.

In her first long jump appearance, senior Destiny Lawrence jumped 6.03 meters at the Texas Invitational and finished fifth overall. On the men's side, senior Benjamin Okafor came 0.01 meters from tying his season-best 7.60-meter jump. Okafor's 7.59-meter jump on his first attempt proved to be the fourth-best jump of the day.

UP NEXT
Houston concludes its action at both the Penn Relays and Texas Invitational on Saturday. The Cougars will get things started at the Penn Relays at 12:15 p.m. CT in the 400-meter relay and at the Texas Invitational at 9:30 a.m. CT in the women's hammer throw.

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