Two School Records Fall at the Texas Relays

FINAL RESULTS (TexasSports.com)

NEW ORLEANS - Two school records fell - one on the sprints side, one on the distance side - as 17 University of New Orleans Track and Field student-athletes faced elite competition over three days at the 2024 Texas Relays presented by Truist.
 
Evan Pardo set a new school outdoor record at 5,000 meters on Thursday night finishing in 14:18.20, good for a fifth place finish out of 20 competitors. The Covington native's time broke the previous record set by Kolyn Saltzman at the 2021 Joe Walker Invitational. Evan now owns the school record, and fifth fastest outdoor 5K in school history - 14:40.17 set last season at Rice. He moves from third to first on the school's all-time performance list passing Saltzman, and Jaden Forester.

On Friday morning Christopher Murphy, John Adesola, Darryl George Jr., and Madonna Favour qualified for Saturday afternoon's finals in the men's 4x100 with a time of 40.05 - Favour made a strong push at the end of the Privateers' race to secure second place in their heat.

The mark ranked seventh all-time in school history, and third all-time on the New Orleans performance list. UNO qualified for the finals with the second-best time of the non-heat winners, and their mark was better than Texas Tech who won their heat in 40.87.

The best was yet to come for the foursome as they set a new school record with a fifth place finish in 39.45 on Saturday afternoon. That time currently ranks No. 10 in the NCAA, No. 4 in the East region, and No.  3 in the South Central region. It breaks the record of 39.63 set at the 2022 LSU Alumni gold by Julian Forde, Elliott Cummings, Ismael Kone and Mason Melancon.
 
John Adesola clocked a blistering 10.22 in the men's 100 meters on Friday afternoon. His time tied him for 10th place with former Privateer Forde (now at Louisiana Tech) and was just seven-hundredths of a second shy of qualifying for the finals.

At the time of the race, his mark was tied for the 12th fastest time in the NCAA this season, tied for No. 8 in the East Region, and sat alone at No. 4 in the South Central Region. Adesola's mark sits just outside the top 10 fastest times in school history and is now fourth on UNO's performance list.

Alexandra Weir - competing in the A section of the Women's 1,500 meters for the second year in a row at the Relays - shaved five seconds off of her time at Mike Myers Stadium last season and finished in sixth place with a time of 4:28.49. It was the ninth fastest time in program history, and the Canadian now owns seven out of the top ten marks in UNO history, including the school record she set at the 2022 Lee University Last Chance Meet.

Emma Bourg, Trinity Bracey, Sophia Wolf, and Weir finished in fourth place in the women's distance medley relay with a time of 11:53.78. It was just the third outdoor DMR run by New Orleans since the program was reinstated in 2013, and about a second and a half shy of last year's effort at the Texas Relays. The Privateers only trailed power five schools Arkansas, Texas, and Texas Tech in the event.

The Privateers return to the track on April 5-6 for the Joe Walker Invitational hosted by Ole Miss. Fans can watch the meet on ESPN+ / SEC Network+. Live scoring will be available via DeltaTiming at a link to be distributed in the future, and live updates will also be available on @privateerstfxc on both Twitter/X and Instagram. 

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