SAN ANTONIO — The UTSA track & field teams will open the 2023 indoor season on Friday, Jan. 13, when they travel to Houston to compete in the Leonard Hilton Memorial Invitational.
Hosted by Houston, the meet is scheduled to get underway with field events starting at 9:30 a.m. at Yeoman Fieldhouse. Running events are slated to begin at noon.
The Roadrunners will line up against athletes from Butler CC, Houston, Huston-Tillotson, Lamar, Minnesota, Our Lady of the Lake, Rice, Sam Houston, St. Thomas, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas A&M-Kingsville and Texas Southern.
UTSA Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Aaron Fox welcomes back an experienced roster for his 15th season at the helm of both programs.
All-Americans Bashiru Abdullahi, Christiaan Le Roux and Jemuel Miller headline the returnees for the men's team.
Abdullahi collected second-team All-America accolades with a 15th-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles at the 2022 NCAA Outdoor Championships, and the senior school record holder from Nigeria swept the Conference USA indoor 60m hurdles and C-USA Outdoor 110m hurdles crowns last year.
Le Roux earned honorable mention All-America recognition after placing 22nd in the long jump at the NCAA Outdoor last year after the South African collected the C-USA silver medal outdoors and the bronze indoors in the event.
Miller became the first Roadrunner to garner All-America honors in the triple jump twice in the same year, finishing fifth at the NCAA Indoor with a school-record mark of 16.17 meters (53-0.75) to collect first-team All-America accolades before picking up second-team outdoor plaudits in June with a 10th-place showing in Eugene.
On the women's side, Ingeborg Gruenwald, Thennelle Williams and Alanah Yukich highlight a deep group of veterans.
Gruenwald captured the C-USA Indoor title in the long jump with a school-record leap of 6.42 meters (21-0.75) and advanced to the NCAA Indoor Championships, where the Austrian reeled in second-team All-America accolades with a 13th-place finish.
Williams sped to C-USA Outdoor Freshman of the Meet honors last May after the Jamaican secured the silver medal in the 100m and also scored points with a fourth-place finish in the 200m and with the fifth-place 4x100m relay.
Yukich is back after providing arguably the highlight moment of the 2022 C-USA Outdoor Championships when she dove at the finish line to narrowly beat Marshall's Ashonti Warner for the 400m hurdles crown.
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