Men's track finishes sixth overall at Conference USA Championship

By Bhagwat Kumar     5/22/12 7:00pm

The men's track and field team placed sixth overall at the Conference USA Championship at Tad Gormley Stadium, hosted by Tulane University.

The Owls finished with 73.5 total points, while Houston won its fourth title in a row with 170.5 points. Second, third and fourth place were tightly contested, with UTEP, Tulsa and East Carolina finishing with 132, 127 and 126 points, respectively.

Clayton Chaney won the decathlon for Rice, while Collin Shurbet (Lovett '12) came away with the bronze in the 400m hurdles with a time of 53.02, narrowly beating out teammate Lee Johnson (Jones '12), who finished with a time of 53.19. Chaney also finished top-25 in the country.

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"Collin Shurbet's race in the 400m hurdles was awesome as he had to fend off fellow Rice senior Lee Johnson for the medal spot," Head Coach Jon Warren said.

Gabe Cuadra placed third in the 10,000m with a time of 30:55.89, and the 4x100m quartet of Will Beasley, Dylan Bradley, Jordan Hmaidan (Wiess '12) and Kyle Denny placed fourth with a time of 42.28, Rice's fastest time of the outdoor season.

"The 4x100 ran surprisingly well considering it was the first time they ran as a unit. They finished only one spot behind a fine tuned UH team, just missing the podium," Warren said.

The qualifying members of the team will now prepare for NCAA Regionals in Austin at the end of May. Following Regionals, those who qualify for the NCAA Championship will continue training until the meet in early June.

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