BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Three meet records were broken on the first day of the two-day 2022 Conference USA Indoor Track & Field Championships at the Birmingham CrossPlex, setting up an exciting Sunday finish. With six events scored,  Charlotte leads on the men’s side while UTSA is in front on the women’s standings.
 
The Charlotte men’s team posted 54.5 points, just ahead of second-place Rice (47 points), while the Roadrunners women’s team scored 34 points to lead second-place Charlotte and FIU (30 points).  
 
Day One Results
 
The championships will resume Sunday morning with the remaining heptathlon events commencing at 8:30 a.m. CT. The field events begin at 10 a.m. followed by the remainder of the running finals at 12 p.m. Day two will be livestreamed on CUSA TV for free.
 
CUSA TV Day 2 Live Link
 
The 2022 meet kicked off with the women’s pentathlon and the first portion of the men’s heptathlon. Rice sophomore Eliza Kraule, after a fifth-place finish in 2021, captured the 2022 pentathlon crown with 3,981 points. The men completed four events in the heptathlon, and UTSA sophomore Joel McFarlane, last year’s runner up, leads the group with 3,105 points going into the final day of competition Sunday.
 
In the field events, Rice junior Nathan Rivera won the men’s pole vault with a 5.04-meter vault. For the second-straight year, Rice junior Nick Hicks claimed the men’s weight throw crown with a heave of 20.92m. Another repeat champion was named in the men’s long jump championship as Middle Tennessee senior Benjamin Onyekwelu posted a mark of 7.69m for his second-straight C-USA indoor title. The men’s high jump competition was intense as the top two finishers each cleared a C-USA leading 2.23m, which would also be the fourth-highest clearance in the NCAA this season, before Southern Miss’ Corvell Todd went on to win the title for the second-straight year. MT’s Erhire Omamuyowi also jumped 2.23m to finish in second place.
 
In a thrilling women’s pole vault competition that saw not one but two athletes clear a C-USA meet record 4.26m, Charlotte junior Riley Felts went on to win her fourth-straight C-USA title in the event with the record-setting clearance. UAB’s Anna Massa also cleared 4.26m to finish with the silver medal. The previous C-USA meet record of 4.15m had stood since March 1, 2014 (Merritt Van Meter, Tulane).
 
The women’s long jump was won by UTSA junior Ingeborg Gruenwald for the second-straight year after she jumped a UTSA school record mark of 6.42m. Rice sophomore Tara Simpson-Sullivan broke her own Rice school record en route to winning the women’s weight throw title after a throw of 22.15 meters which also broke five-year old C-USA meet record.
 
In the running events, Charlotte had the top two finishers in the men’s 5000 meters, led by Nick Scudder, who finished in a time of 13:57.03, to win the event for the second-straight year. In the women’s 5000, Southern Miss freshman Oliwia Wawrzyniak earned her first C-USA title with a winning time of 16:33.99. Middle Tennessee swept the distance medley relays as the men’s team of Carmelo Cannizazzaro, Darien Jones, Brian Rono, Habtamu Geta clocked a time of 10:01.00 and the women’s squad of Joice Jebor, Glory Nyenke, Caitlin Cunningham, Eusila Chepkemei finishing with a C-USA meet record time of 11:30.59.