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Jackson scores 33 points as UTSA beats Texas State, 77-71

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Guard Jhivvan Jackson produced a season-high 33 points and added seven rebounds Saturday afternoon, leading the UTSA Roadrunners past the Texas State Bobcats, 77-71, in San Marcos.

Jackson hit 13 of 26 from the field as the Roadrunners (3-6) won their first road game of the season and claimed their first two-game winning streak.

Keaton Wallace scored 17 points and Erik Czumbel had 11 to deny the Bobcats (6-4).

Breaking from a three-point halftime lead, the Roadrunners stayed patient in their offense and hit six three-pointers after intermission.

Jackson nailed a big one with 4:48 remaining to make it a 10-point game. With a defender’s hand in his face, he leaned back and hoisted it high, drawing nothing but net.

“They’re a great defensive team and I knew they were going to come at me,” Jackson told the team’s radio broadcast. “But I had a couple of easy shots in the beginning. It was kind of just, my teammates helped me on the screens, and coach trusted me to take a few more shots. I mean, they were really just going in today.”

It was a big win for the Roadrunners, who started the season at 0-5.

“To be honest, this was a concerning game … because they’re so tough, so good defensively,” UTSA coach Steve Henson said. “We haven’t shown the ability to have strong possessions yet. We get clicking sometimes, but I was concerned that maybe we weren’t ready to have enough good offensive possessions to withstand their pressure, and we did.”

Guard Mason Harrell led the Bobcats with 19 points. Guard Caleb Asberry had 18. Nijal Pearson, Texas State’s best player, was held to 15 points on 5 of 15 shooting.

Pearson was 2 of 6 from the field in the second half and seemed frustrated at times by the UTSA defense.

First-half recap

Jackson came out hot, scoring 21 points in the first half as UTSA took a 37-34 lead on the Bobcats.

The game is being played in San Marcos at Strahan Arena, the home of the Bobcats.

Hitting nine of 16 from the field and three of seven from beyond the arc, Jackson paced the Roadrunners, who built a lead as large as nine points.

Mason Harrell hit a three with four seconds left in the half to pull the Bobcats to within three.

Records

UTSA 3-6
Texas State 6-4

Recently

Texas State played at the University of Houston on Wednesday night. The Cougars won 68-60 to snap the Bobcats’ four-game winning streak.

UTSA played at home on Tuesday, beating Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 89-67. It was UTSA’s first victory over an NCAA Division I team this season.

Texas State rallies for 64-57 road victory at UNLV

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The Texas State Bobcats rallied from a 10-point deficit in the first half and then held on late to defeat the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels 64-57 Wednesday night in Las Vegas.

Guard Nijal Pearson led the Bobcats with a season-high 25 points and 10 rebounds in the victory at the Thomas & Mack Center.

The Runnin’ Rebels couldn’t get anything going offensively against the Bobcats, shooting 34.7 percent from the field.

Records

Texas State 4-2
UNLV 2-4

Key Sequence

Trailing 26-16, the Bobcats constructed a 12-2 run to tie the game at halftime. Pearson hit four straight free throws and a jumper in the streak that lifted Texas State into a 28-28 tie.

Star watch

Amauri Hardy scored 18 for UNLV, hitting 4 of 7 from beyond the three-point stripe. The junior guard from Detroit was 5 of 14 from the field. Hardy entered averaging 19 points.

Pearson, a senior guard from Beaumont, hit 8 of 16 from the floor. He was only 1 of 5 from three. But he nailed 8 of 9 at the line. He came in averaging 17.8.

UTSA signs two players for the 2020-21 season

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UTSA on Wednesday signed two players for the 2020-21 season, including a guard out of the Houston area and a forward from Australia.

Jaja Sanni, a 6-foot-4 guard, is from Clear Lake High School. He is rated as the No. 25 player in the state by TexasHoops.com.

UTSA also signed 6-6 Australian forward Lachlan Bofinger. Bofinger prepped as a junior and senior at Montverde Academy in Florida.

Former Goliad standout Zamzow rallies to win NCAA heptathlon

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Native South Texan Ashtin Zamzow rallied from a 254-point deficit Saturday to win the title in the heptathlon at the NCAA Track and Field Championships.

Zamzow, a University of Texas senior from Goliad, took the lead in the javelin and finished with a school-record 6,222 points.

Texas A&M’s Tyra Gittens, who held the big lead on Zamzow after five events, finished second with 6,049.

Michelle Atherley of Miami placed third with 6,014.

Zamzow told ESPN that “it’s a dream come true” to claim the championship.

“Words can’t describe it,” said Zamzow, who ran as a freshman at Texas A&M before transferring.

A large contingent of fans cheered in the stands at UT’s Myers Stadium during her television interview.

Who were they?

“It’s family, friends, everybody who supported me in my dream to come to Texas and be a successful athlete,” she said. “They mean the world to me. I’m so glad they’re here with me.”

Temperatures in the mid-90s in Austin made it tough on all the athletes on the fourth and final day of the meet.

Gittens held a 4,818-4,564 lead on Zamzow entering the second event of the day and the sixth of seven events in the heptathlon.

Zamzow promptly erased the deficit with a heave of 162-7 to win the javelin, an effort that vaulted her into a 5,416-5,356 points lead going into the 800 meters, the final event.

At that point, Zamzow needed only to avoid finishing more than four seconds behind Gittens in the 800 to claim her first outdoor heptathlon title.

She covered the distance in 2 minutes and 21.31 seconds to clinch the overall championship, with Gittens crossing in 2:29.99 to finish as the runnerup.

Zamzow’s title puts quite a twist on the Texas vs. Texas A&M rivalry. Her father, Stacy, and her mother, Kalleen, both competed in track at A&M.

After Ashtin Zamzow left Goliad, she competed at A&M in the 2014-15 season and then elected to transfer.

In her first year at Texas, in 2016, she made it to the NCAA meet in the heptathlon but finished 17th. In 2017, Zamzow redshirted. Last year, she was 11th.

This year, she turned it on, winning the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays title with 6,148 points.

Competing at home in the national meet, Zamzow set personal-bests in the 100 hurdles (13.33), in the 200 (24.23) and in the long jump (19-8 ΒΎ).

She tied her all-time best in the high jump (5-10) on the way to the ninth-best point total in collegiate history.

It was also the seventh-best heptathlon score ever recorded at the NCAA championship.

Gittens, from Trinidad & Tobago, won the Southeastern Conference title earlier this season with a score of 5,793. In high school, she won 17 state titles in Tennessee.

Clark celebrates Arkansas team title

Former Smithson Valley distance running star Devin Clark celebrated a women’s team title with the Arkansas Razorbacks. Clark is an Arkansas senior who placed seventh in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.

Women’s team standings

Top 10

Arkansas 64, USC 57, LSU 43, Texas A&M 38, Oregon 34, Florida 32, Alabama 29, New Mexico 27, Colorado 24, (T10) Texas, South Carolina, Stanford, Florida State, all 20.

Horton runs on Baylor relay

Former Judson standout Kiana Horton and the Baylor women finished seventh in the 4×400 relay on the last event of the day. Horton is a Baylor senior.

Devin Clark takes seventh in NCAA 3,000 steeplechase

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Devin Clark, an Arkansas senior from Smithson Valley, finished seventh on Saturday in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the NCAA Track and Field Championships.

Clark was timed in 9 minutes and 55.22 seconds.

Allie Ostrander of Boise State won the race and set a facility record with a time of 9:37.23 on a hot afternoon.

The meet is in its last day and its final session. It’s being held in Austin, at Myers Stadium, on the University of Texas campus.

Clark is also on the start list for the 5,000 meters.

In 2014-15, her senior year of high school, Clark capped a record-setting career at Smithson Valley by winning state championship in cross country and by taking silver medals for second place in both the 1,600- and 3,200-meters in track.

Earlier Saturday, Ashtin Zamzow, a UT senior from Goliad, took the lead in the heptathlon with 5,416 points with one event remaining.

Tyra Gittens, a Texas A&M sophomore, has totaled 5,356 points.

Zamzow erased a 254-point deficit with a heave of 162 feet and 7 inches to win the javelin.

Gilbert, Rogers earn All-American designations at NCAA meet

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Former San Antonio area standouts Tre’Bien Gilbert and Alex Rogers brought home All-American designations Friday on Day 3 of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Gilbert, an Arkansas freshman from Judson, ran the third leg of the Razorbacks’ 4×100-meter relay.

Rogers, a University of Texas senior from New Braunfels Canyon, finished sixth in a grueling 3,000-meter steeplechase that was run in 90-degree weather in Austin.

Ashtin Zamzow, a UT senior from Goliad, held second place in the women’s heptathlon after four events.

Ranked No. 1 in the nation coming into the meet, Zamzow will need to come from behind and catch Texas A&M sophomore Tyra Gittens to win the title Saturday on the last day of the meet at Myers Stadium.

In the first event of the evening session Friday, Arkansas finished fourth in one of the fastest 4×100 relays in championship history.

Florida won in a collegiate best 37.97 seconds, followed by Florida State (38.08), Texas Tech (38.45) and Arkansas (38.58).

Both Florida and Floria State bested the previous record of 38.17, set last year by the University of Houston.

The Arkansas sprint relay consisted of freshman Josh Oglesby, sophomore Kris Hari, Gilbert and redshirt senior Roy Ejiakuekwu.

Last year, Gilbert emerged as one of the top high school hurdlers in the nation as a Judson senior.

He won state titles in Class 6A in both the 110- and 300-meter hurdles.

In his first outdoor season as a collegian, he moved into the rotation of runners on the Arkansas sprint relay two weeks ago during the West Regional preliminaries.

Gilbert held tight to the position at the national meet, running third on the Arkansas relay in Wednesday’s semifinals and in Friday’s finals.

In the 3000 steeplechase, Rogers started fast, holding second or third place through the first five minutes.

From there, he faded to back in the pack but finished strong, passing a few runners at the end for sixth in 8 minutes and 43.29 seconds.

Two runners tripped on barriers and fell on the last lap.

One of them, Stanford’s Steven Fahy, got up and won the race in 8:38.46.

Sam Worley, a UT sophomore from New Braunfels Canyon, finished a disappointing ninth in the 1,500 meters.

Notre Dame’s Yared Nuguse won in 3:41.381, coming from behind and leaning at the end to beat second-place Justine Kiprotich of Michigan State, who was timed at 3:41.384.

Worley entered the meet ranked fifth.

But he finished a hard-luck ninth in 3:42.81, less than a half second behind both seventh-place Jack Antsey of Illinois State and eighth-place Casey Comber of Villanova.

In the heptathlon, Gittens and Zamzow were 1-2 in the standings through four events.

Gittens, from Nashville, Tenn., scored a victory in the high jump and placed second in the shot put.

Zamzow placed third in both the 100-hurdles and third in the shot put.

Going into the last day, which consists of competitions in the long jump, javelin and 800 meters, Gittens holds a 161-point edge (3,872-3,711) on Zamzow.

Zamzow started her career at Texas A&M before transferring to Texas.

She scored a career-high and nation-leading 6,148 points at the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in March.

Gittens’ best this year was 5,793 at the Southeastern Conference championships on May 9.

Final men’s team standings

Top 10

Texas Tech 60, Florida 50, Houston 40, Georgia 32.5, Stanford 32, Texas A&M 29, LSU 28, BYU 27, Texas 26, Alabama 25.

Incarnate Word’s Alexander places sixth in NCAA long jump

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Sarea Alexander had one last try to make her mark in the women’s long jump at the NCAA Track and Field Championships late Thursday night.

The University of the Incarnate Word senior made it count with her best effort of the evening, leaping 21 feet, 1 and 1/2 inch to finish sixth in the event.

Florida’s Yanis David placed first with a jump of 22-5 1/4, followed by Jasmyn Steels of Northwestern State (22-0 1/4) and Texas A&M’s Deborah Acquah (21-9).

TCU’s Destiny Longmire finished fourth (21-6), Rougui Sow of Florida State placed fifth (21-3) and Alexander, from San Antonio’s MacArthur High School, was sixth.

Alexander, the first athlete from UIW to compete in the national outdoor meet, took six attempts on the evening, and she produced efforts of 20-0 1/2, 18-4 1/2, 20-8, 19-11 1/2, 20-10 3/4 and 21-1 1/2.

Razorbacks’ Clark in two finals

Arkansas senior Devin Clark qualified for the finals of the 3,000-meter steeplechase Thursday on Day 2 of the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Clark, from Smithson Valley High School, ran 9:54.93 for fifth in her heat to move on as an autotmatic qualifier.

She is now qualified to run in two event finals on Saturday, the 3,000 steeplechase and the 5,000 meters.

The meet is being held in Austin at Myers Stadium.

Local athletes

Baylor’s Kiana Horton, a senior from Judson, qualified for the finals as part of the 4×400 relay. The Bears ran 3:32.88 to place second in their heat in the semifinals.

UTSA freshman Gary Haasbroek retired with an injury after eight events in the decathlon.

UTSA’s Haasbroek in sixth as NCAA decathlon continues

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UTSA freshman Gary Haasbroek on Thursday will enter the final five events of the decathlon in sixth place at the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships.

Haasbroek, from Melbourne, Australia, has 3,998 points, 25 points out of the No. 5 spot and just one ahead of the No. 7.

Arkansas senior Gabe Moore (4,023) placed fifth and Michigan senior Jack Lint (3,997) was seventh.

The NCAA meet is taking place at Myers Stadium in Austin. It started Wedesday and will run through Saturday.

Haasbroek’s best events on the first day came in the long jump and and in the 400 meters, as he finished third and seventh, respectively.

He ran a time of 11.09 seconds in the 100 meters, produced a long jump of 24 feet, 3 and 1/2 inches, threw the shot put 40-7 and 3/4, high jumped 6-4 and 3/4 and ran the 400 meters in 49.05.

Local athletes

Wednesday’s results

Sam Worley, UT sophomore from New Braunfels Canyon, qualified for the finals in the 1,500 meters (3:46.43, ninth place overall)

Alex Rogers, UT senior from New Braunfels Canyon, qualified for the finals in the 3,000 steeplechase (8:43.09, third overall)

North Carolina routs top-ranked Duke, 88-72

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Forward Luke Maye produced 30 points and 15 rebounds Wednesday night as eighth-ranked North Carolina won decisively on the road against an old rival, toppling the No. 1 ranked Duke Blue Devils, 88-72.

North Carolina’s Cam Johnson also enjoyed a big game with 26 points and seven rebounds at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Duke played most of the night without star freshman Zion Williamson, who fell and suffered a knee injury only 36 seconds into the action. He did not return.

Subsequently, the Tar Heels ran solid halfcourt offensive sets and rolled behind Maye and Cam Johnson to a 10-point lead at halftime.

North Carolina outscored Duke 17-5 in the first four minutes of the second half to take a 22-point lead.

Johnson capped the streak when he hit a layup with 15:58 remaining to make it 59-37.

Duke closed to within 13 points with 2:44 remaining, when Cam Reddish hit a three.

But the Tar Heels steadied themselves and held on, breaking the Blue Devils’ nine-game winning streak.

Records

North Carolina 21-5, 11-2
Duke 23-3, 11-2

Notable

Williamson suffered the injury on his first touch of the game. On the wing, he drove into the key and went down when the shoe on his left foot came apart. Replay showed him clutching the back of his right leg above the knee.

Bracey scores 23 as Louisiana Tech knocks off UTSA, 72-67

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DaQuan Bracey scored six of his game-high 23 points in the final 1:35 Saturday to lift the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs to a 72-67 victory over the UTSA Roadrunners.

UTSA’s hopes of a regular-season title in Conference USA took a major hit, as the Roadrunners made too many mistakes down the stretch and hit only 5 of 29 for the game on three pointers.

Old Dominion leads the C-USA title chase at 11-3. Western Kentucky, Southern Miss and UTSA are 9-5. UAB and North Texas are 8-6.

Coming up

UTSA next will complete the regular season with four games in the C-USA’s new bonus play format.

Group 1 teams in bonus play will include No. 1 Old Dominion, followed by No. 2 Western Kentucky, No. 3 Southern Miss, No. 4 UTSA and No. 5 UAB.

Projected pairings

A C-USA spokesman said earlier this week that No. 4 would host Nos. 1 and 5 and play on the road against 2 and 3.

Which means, presumably, that UTSA will host Old Dominion and UAB and play on the road at Western Kentucky and Southern Miss.

Trying to hold on for the regular-season title, Old Dominion is expected to host Western Kentucky and Southern Miss and play on the road at UTSA and UAB.

The official pairings and schedule are expected to be released tonight.

Records

UTSA 15-12, 9-5
Louisiana Tech 17-10, 7-7