As dawn broke upon Saturday’s events, nerves appeared to be no match for Texas. The Longhorns placed in a number of events, capping off a successful Texas Relays.
Senior Jacob Thormaehlen clenched the Longhorns’ first shot put title since Oskar Jakobsson in 1982. In his final attempt, Thormaehlen claimed UT’s third all-time victory in the event with a heave of 64-01.00.
“It’s kind of confidence building to know that you’re ready for your last throw and you’re not worried about it,” Thormaehlen said. “Out there, I was calm, I was cool, but I wasn’t nervous. I knew it would come together. The training is there. All the workouts have been good. I had my eye on it when I found out that the last time a Longhorn shot-putter won Texas Relays was 1982. So, I was ready to wipe that off.”
Junior Hayden Baillio was able to feed off Thormaehlen’s confidence and channel that into his own performance. Baillio finished just behind his teammate for second place with a throw of 63-9. Freshman Will Spence came in sixth at 58-10.
Freshman Ryan Crouser and Blake Jakobsson represented the Longhorns in the discus throw. Despite this being his first outdoor meet of the season, Crouser claimed third place overall with a throw of 195-6. Jakobsson finished in 12th with a mark of 167-0.
Junior Keiron Stewart continued the Longhorns’ trend of success in the lanes with his third-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles. His time of 13.46 was much improved from his 13.75 recorded in preliminaries. Shane Brathwaite of Texas Tech finished in second at 13.43 and LSU’s Barrett Nugent won the event with a time of 13.37.
Trey Hardee, former UT decathlete and reigning world champion came in fourth place in the 110-meter invitational hurdle event.
No UT athletes competed in the 100-meter dash finals, but Florida, LSU and A&M were able to take top finishes. Senior Jeff Demps came in first for the Gators at an impressive 10.01. Aaron Ernest of LSU and Prezel Hardy Jr. of A&M followed close behind finishing in 10.15 and 10.17 respectively.
Also in the 100-meter events was UT signee Johnathan Gray of Aledo High School. The explosive running back hoped to put his wheels on display for his future Longhorn family, but things didn’t go exactly as planned. The Aledo team was late in arriving to the meet, which left Gray little time for a warm up. His time of 11.11 put him in 54th among 64 overall competitors in the event.
“I didn’t have time to stretch,” he said. “We had a three-hour drive from Aledo, then we hit Austin traffic. I was just glad to be able to run in another Texas Relays.”
In the men’s distance medley relay, Patrick McGregor, Dereck Dreyer, Kyle Thompson and CJ Jessett were able to post a second place time of 9:42.82 behind Texas A&M. Baylor came in third with a 9:44.17.
Mark Jackson, Trevante Rhodes, Emerson Sanders and Keiron Stewart raced to eighth place for the Longhorns in the 4×100-meter relay. Auburn sprinted to first place with a winning time of 38.30.
In the long jump, Sanders finished 12th with a leap of 7.03 meters and sophomore Mark Thomas cleared 5.05 meters for eleventh place in pole vault.
What was once reality just days ago is now a collection of memories for the Longhorns that competed in the 85th Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays. But the outdoor season has just begun, and they now have a new focus: the upcoming Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
Printed on Monday, April 2, 2012 as: Throwers excel over weekend, Longhorns rack up medals.
