Live Results | Participants (Men’s) | Participants (Women’s) | Meet Schedule | ESPN3
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Eleven student-athletes from Cincinnati, Houston and Wichita State will represent the American Athletic Conference at the 2018 NCAA Division I Men’s and Women’s Indoor Track and Field Championships from March 9-10 in at Texas A&M’s Gilliam Indoor Track in College Station, Texas.
Nine student-athletes will represent The American in the men’s meet, while Cincinnati seniors Loretta Blaut and Annette Echikunwoke will compete in the women’s meet. On the men’s side, the Bearcats’ seniors Alex Bloom and Adrian Valles, along with Houston’s Mario Burke, Elijah Hall, Quivell Jordan, Amere Lattin, Kahmari Montgomery and Nathaniel Mechler and Wichita State senior Hunter Veith each punched tickets.
ESPN3 will stream the meet live starting at 6:30 p.m. ET March 9 and starting at 5 p.m. ET March 10. A re-air of the championship will take place starting at 7 p.m. ET Sunday, March 11 on ESPN2. Live results can be viewed on the
NCAA website.
The defending national weight throw champion Echikunwoke enters the 2018 meet ranked No. 1 in the NCAA after she threw 24.78m (81-03.75) at the Buckeye Tune-Up on Feb. 16. That mark moved her up to No. 2 on the NCAA's all-time list while the throw measured out as the fourth-longest throw in NCAA history. Echikunwoke won her third American weight throw title and set the conference record in the shot put this year to collect 20 points for the Bearcats on the way to their first conference title. She earned three conference Athlete of the Week honors and won USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week honor this year.
Blaut cleared a height of 1.87 meters (81-03.75) in the high jump to set an American Athletic Conference meet record at this year’s championships, while earning her second straight conference title. Her mark pushed her to No. 5 in the NCAA, as she enters the national meet as a returning All-America selection, earning USTFCCCA All-America second team honors by placing ninth in the high jump. She earned the conference’s Indoor Field Most Outstanding Performance honor.
Five Cougar men punched a tickets to the NCAA Indoor Championships. Hall will compete in the 60-and 200-meter dashes, while Montgomery (400-meter dash), Mechler (heptathlon) and the 4x400-meter relay team of Burke, Montgomery, Lattin and Jordan qualified for the national meet.
Hall ran the third-fastest time in the nation and the second-fastest time in school history in the 60-meter dash at 6.58 to win the Tyson Invitational earlier this season. At the Charlie Thomas Invitational, Hall broke his own school record in the 200 when he ran 20.51, the fifth-fastest time in the nation this season. He won both these events at the conference championships to earn the league’s Most Valuable Performance award.
Montgomery will make his second trip to the NCAA Indoor Championships, and his first since transferring to the Cougars from Missouri prior to this season. Montgomery claimed The American Indoor Championship, breaking the meet and Birmingham CrossPlex record in the 400-meter dash a week ago, when he ran 45.53 to post the fifth-fastest mark in the NCAA this season. His time allowed him to secure the conference’s Indoor Track Most Outstanding Performance honor.
Mechler won his second-consecutive conference title in the heptathlon after scoring 5,703 points in the seven-event competition. His mark shattered the Cougars’ school and conference records and pushed him to No. 11 in the nation, as he earned this year’s conference Indoor Field Most Outstanding performance honor.
Burke, Montgomery, Lattin and Jordan will run in the final race of the indoor championships, the 4x400-meter relay. Houston’s squad broke the school record twice this season and posted the fourth-fastest time in the nation, when they ran 3:04.18 to win the Tyson Invitational.
Valles is a five-time USTFCCCA All-America first team honoree after finishing as the NCAA runner-up in the pole vault in the 2017 outdoor championship. The senior became the first in American Athletic Conference history to win the same event four times at the indoor conference championships after capturing the title with a clearance of 5.50 meters this year. That mark earned him the league’s Indoor Field Most Outstanding Performance award. Valles cleared the No. 4 height in the NCAA this season at 5.61 meters.
Bloom set Cincinnati’s school record in the heptathlon with his mark of 5,649 to place 16th on the NCAA performance list. He becomes the first Bearcat man to advance to the NCAA indoor meet in the combined events. Bloom also won the high jump at this year’s American Championships.
Veith ended the regular season ranked No. 2 in the nation in the heptathlon with 6,023 points recorded on Nov. 30—the first day of completion in the 2017-18 season. The two-time All-America senior returns to the national stage after finishing ninth in the heptathlon at the 2017 NCAA indoor championships and sixth in the decathlon at the 2017 outdoor national championships. He registered points in four events and won a medal at The American Indoor Track and Field Championships this season.