ORLANDO, Fla. - Jamie Riles posted the winning time in the 400-meter dash, covering the distance in 53.62 seconds, to claim the 28th overall championship for the Tulane women's program at the Conference USA Outdoor Championships. The Tulane women's track and field program wrapped up their competition at the outdoor champions in tenth place, while the men's program finished in eighth. Three competitors on the men's side and three women's student-athletes posted season-best times on the final day of competition in the lanes at the UCF Track Complex. "We got the kind of results at this meet that we expected coming into the meet," said Tulane head coach Eric Peterson. "It is rare to have every athlete perform at a season-best level, but we had the majority of our athletes do just that. From a coaching stand point you really can't hope for much more than that. All season we have been focused on improving each time out and we have so many athletes on our team doing that right now. This is exactly what we asked of them and responded with great showings at the Conference USA meet."
Heading into the back stretch it was Riles, Abinuwa and Whitney Harris of Houston holding almost neck-and-neck with each other. Riles surged over the final 100-meters, as she did on Saturday to win her semi-final heat, and edged her nearest competitor by just 0.20-seconds to become the 14th athlete to win an individual CUSA title. That gives the Green Wave 28 total on the women's side, which ranks third in the history of the conference.
"Jamie runs the home stretch so aggressively and she did it again today and took the race," said Peterson. "I think she really learned from her semifinal race to pace herself in the first 200-meters and she had a tremendous finish to her race to grab the individual title." Ana Ruzevic posted a fourth place finish in the javelin with a season-best toss of 45.12-meters. It was the first time this season that Ruzevic eclipsed the 45-meter mark and she was just the sixth athlete in Conference USA to post a throw of better than 45-meters this season. Johanna Gretschel posted the teams top time in the 5000-meter run as she crossed the finish line in 18:47.78 to finish 27th. Brian Lozes posted his best showing in the 1500-meter run on Sunday in Orlando to finish seventh in the 14-person field. The sophomore ran a career-best 3:59.54 to mark the second time this season he has went under the four-minute mark. Corey Squire grabbed a career-best time in the 5000-meter run by covering the distance in 15:59.97, marking the first Tulane runner to cover the distance in under 16-minutes this season. Evan Nicoll converted his first two chances at distance in the pole vault on Sunday, clearing 3.75-meters and then setting a new personal best with a successful vault of 3.90-meters. The 4x400-meter relay squad of Jon Frano, Koplan Nwabuoku, Brayden Kelly and Garrett Myer took sixth in the final event of the competition with a 3:21.04 showing. Tulane will have to wait for the final NCAA rankings to be released this week to see how many athletes will advance on to the NCAA Greensboro Regional. The new regional format will take the top 48 marks from the season in all of the individual running and field events, while inviting the top 24 relay teams from the two regions to compete for a chance at advancing to the National Championships in Eugene, Oregon. Men's Final Standings
1. Houston, 191
2. UTEP, 127
3. Rice, 118
4. Tulsa, 115
5. East Carolina, 111
6. Memphis, 95
7. Southern Miss, 47
8. Tulane, 9
Women's Final Standings
1. UCF, 114
2. UTEP, 109
3. Rice, 87
4. Tulsa, 81.83
5. SMU, 76.33
6. Houston, 75
7. UAB, 70
8. East Carolina, 67
9. Southern Miss, 63
10. Tulane, 32
11. Marshall, 27
12. Memphis, 13.83