Arizona men’s and women’s track and field spent their Saturday morning in heated competition with four universities at the New Mexico Cherry & Silver Invitational in Albuquerque. The Wildcats faced off against Brigham Young University, Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley and the University of New Mexico, amongst others. While not as spectacular as the season opener, the meet still had some strong points for Arizona.
Freshman high jumper Brigetta Barrett showed up to compete. Barrett tied the record mark at New Mexico’s Albuquerque Convention Center with a height of 6 3/4 and got her guaranteed spot at the NCAA National Championships.
“”I’m glad that I auto-qualified for Nationals, but I still want to jump a lot higher … but I’m disappointed I didn’t beat the record,”” said Barrett. “”I felt like I had it, but it slipped away from me.””
Barrett is the second UA women’s high jumper to gain a spot at the national championships, along with senior Liz Patterson.
This meet marked the distance runners’ first appearance of the season. Redshirt sophomore Abdi Hassan came in first in the men’s 800-meter with a time of 1 minute, 50 seconds.
For the women, junior Maggie Callahan came in first in the mile with a time of 5:01. The women’s distance squad almost had a sweep of the mile but lost second place to UNM.
The men’s triple jump also had their first competition of the season. Freshman Nick Ross came in fifth with a distance of 49-11 1/4 while senior Luis Rivera-Morales came in seventh with a distance of 49-6 1/2.
The women’s 400-meter relay team improved their time from last week’s meet by coming in first with a time of 3:44.
In the women’s shot put, Arizona took the top four spots, with freshman Julie Labonte coming in first with a throw that went 50-6. Freshman Alyssa Hasslen, sophomore Taylor Freeman and freshman Omotayo Talabi followed her in the rankings.
At the end of the day, Arizona won six events, including Luis Rivera-Morales’ win in the men’s long jump with a distance of 23-11. Senior Chris Titsworth also won the men’s 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.13 seconds to round out the Wildcats’ victories of the weekend.
