Sophomore Jennifer Mace won the 400 meters and ran the achor leg on Tulsa's second-place 4x400 meter relay team.

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Tulsa Men Place Fifth, Women Seventh at the Conference USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships

Rice win women's title and Houston men claim C-USA crown

May 16, 2009

Saturday Results |Complete Results|  Photo Gallery 

Tulsa, Oklahoma - The Rice women and Houston men captured conference titles in the Conference USA Track & Field Championships on Saturday at the Hurricane Track and Soccer Stadium. Tulsa's men finished in fifth place with 97 points, while the Hurricane women placed seventh overall with 62 points.

The Rice women scored 130 points, just 13 points better than second-place UCF's 117 total, while the Houston men outdistanced UTEP, 198 to 149, to win the league titles.

Tulsa turned in two first-place performances on the final day of the C-USA Championships as a pair of Hurricane sophomores claimed the victories. Jennifer Mace won the 400 meters and Justin Duncan won the 1500m.

The Hurricane ended the C-USA Championships with a total of four winning performances.

Tulsa's Mace held off UTEP's Endurance Abinuwa to win the 400 meters as her time of 53.71 was 29th best time in the nation this year. It was also her personal best and the third-fastest time in school history. Mace's time was also a regional qualifying time.

"It was a pretty strong field, the top three girls have been battling each other for the past two seasons. So it was nice to win the championship in front of the home crowd and in my hometown," said Mace, from nearby Owasso.

Duncan held off UTEP runners Nicodemus Ng'etich, Dominic Tanui and Justice Chirchir to claim the victory in the 1,5000 meters. It's the second straight year that a Hurricane runner won the 1500m, as Mark Davidson claimed the title last year. Duncan took the lead from the start, and, other than relinquishing it for a few seconds, held on for the victory in a time of 3:52.48, outdistancing Tanui's time of 3:53.49. Later in the evening, Duncan turned in a sixth-place performance in the 800 meters to garner three points.

The win for Duncan gave the Hurricane men three first-place finishers for the C-USA Championships. Previous winners included John Beattie in the 10,000m on Thursday and Tim Nedow in the discus throw on Friday.

"I was coming off of an injury in the indoor season, but this outdoor season I've been training really hard," said Duncan. "I knew I was in shape to win the 1,500 meters and it feels great to see that work pay off. I'm happy to get the men's team some points in both the 1,500 meters and 800 meters."

Nedow tried to duplicate his gold medal performance in the discus from Friday in the shot put today, but settled for second place with his best throw covering 15.74m (51-07.75).

Tulsa's duo of John Beattie and Kyle Dekker finished in second and third-place in the 5,000 meter run. It was Beattie and Dekker exchanging the top spot for all but the final 100 meters, as UTEP's Nicodemus Ng'etich took over the lead to claim the victory with a time of 14:19.71. Beattie clocked a time of 14:20.15, while Dekker finished with a time of 14:22.41.

Senior Thomas Stoltz turned in a third-place performance in the javelin with a season-best mark of 63.75 meters (209-02), which came in his fifth attempt of the day. The throw was good enough to qualify for the NCAA regional, and move him into third place on the school's all-time records list.

"Going into my fifth throw today the two guys in front of me had knocked me from second to fourth place," said senior Thomas Stoltz. "I got onto the runway and realized that this is it for me, if I don't get on the medal stand this year I won't have another chance. I was able to get a good throw in that put me back into third place. It was great to be able to medal here at our own facility in the conference championships, and it is something that I will remember for a long time."

In addition to Mace's first-place performance, the Hurricane women also received points on Saturday from Alex Becker, April Montgomery, Caitlin Clancy, Dawn Nagazina, Tayler Rigsby, Melanie Cleland, the 4x400 and 4x100 meter relay teams.

The two seniors, Becker and Montgomery, each turned in second-place performances today, while the 4x400 meter relay team also had a second place finish as Montgomery, in the third leg, and Mace, in the fourth leg, made up a lot of time while the Hurricane moved up from last place following the first leg to clock a time of 3:44.52.

Becker, who was second on Thursday night in the 10,000 meters, had that same runner-up finish in today's 5,000m race with a time of 16:22.06 to garner eight points for the Hurricane.

After finishing in third-place in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:00.10, Montgomery moved into second place to garner eight points after the winner, Lizzie Harris of UCF, was disqualified for a lead-leg violation.

Clancy scored five points for the Hurricane in the pole vault with a height of 3.50m (11-05.75), while Nagazina also tallied five points with a fourth-place finish in the 800 meters with a time of 2:12.49. Rigsby finished seventh in the 800m in a time of 2:15.93 for two points.

Cleland garnered one point by finishing in eighth-place in the 1,500 meter run with a time of 4:40.92. Also finishing in eighth place was Tulsa's 4x100 meter relay team of Jessica Ford, Jennifer Mace, Ashley Wills and Racquell Powell with a time of 47.41.

UTEP's Blessing Okagbare, who won the women's long jump, 100 meters and triple jump, had the top female performance of the championships and in the midst of winning those three Gold medals she set the NCAA's high mark for this year with a triple jump of 13.73m today. Okagbare was also the high point scorer of the meet with 32.5 points. Houston's Chris Carter earned the men's performance of the meet for his triple jump of 16.3m (53-5.75), while UTEP's Nicodemus Ng'etech had 26 points to earn the men's high point scorer of the meet.

The Golden Hurricane continues its season on May 29-30 at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Norman, Okla. Tulsa has a total of 10 athletes who have set regional qualifying marks this season.

C-USA Championships Final Team Standings
Men (21 events)
1.	Houston	198
2.	UTEP	149
3.	Rice	112
4.	ECU	98
5.	Tulsa	97
6.	USM	73
7.	Memphis	69
8.	Tulane	4
Women (21 events)
1.	Rice	130
2.	UCF	117
3.	SMU	96
4.	Houston	85.5
5.	UTEP	79
6.	Memphis	68.50
7.	Tulsa	62
8.	UAB	48
9.	USM	43.50
10.	ECU	41.50
11.	Tulane	39
12.	Marshall 7

Conference USA Special Awards
Men's Performance of the Meet: Chris Carter, Houston
Men's Freshman of the Meet: D'Korian Ford, Houston
Men's High Point Scorer: Nicodemas Ng etich, UTEP
Men's Coach of the Year: Leroy Burrell, Houston
Women's Performance of the Meet: Blessing Okagbare, UTEP
Women's Freshman of the Meet: Simone DuToit, SMU
Women's High Point Scorer: Blessing Okagbare, UTEP
Women's Coach of the Year: Jim Bevens, Rice