UTEP sprinter Neisha Burgher nabs three gold medals at CUSA championships

UTEP sprinter Neisha Burgher is one of those athletes who believes you play how you practice. That gave her a great deal of confidence heading into the Conference USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships and it showed up big time on the day she stamped herself as the heir to UTEP's sprint throne.

She began her day with a leg on UTEP's 4x100-meter relay that chased down New Mexico State in the final meters, then ran a wind-legal meet and school records in the 100 (11.06) and 200 (22.44). She finished her four-goal day with a dramatic third-to-first anchor carry in the 4x400 relay to earn high-point honors for the meet.

More: Conference USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships live results, heat sheets

Those times also met the Olympic standards, and those school records knocked UTEP legend Blessing Okagbare off the top line of the record book.

"My day was long, but practice is like this, I can take on any task," said a beaming Simpson, who will run in the Jamaican Olympic trials next month. "I'm super proud. I haven't even looked at any races or results, but my coach told me (her times), I'm proud."

After teaming up with Zani Meaders, Marissa Simpson and Rejoice Sule, she was a wire-to-wire winner in both sprints while stamping her name on the CUSA record book. What was strange was the wind. Five minutes after the men ran in a 5.1 meters-per-second tailwind, the women's 100 had a 0.7 tailwind.

Burgher finished the meet by showing her range, coming from 10 meters back on the anchor of the 4x400 to charge past Louisiana Tech and New Mexico State to claim gold for herself, Princess Uche, Loubna Benhadja and Sule.

As for meeting the Olympic standard, which will give her a chance to make one of the two most competitive Olympic sprint teams in the world, "That's a very cool deal," she said. "I wasn't thinking about it, if it comes, it comes. Definitely I knew I would get it."

Miners finish second in both men's and women's

UTEP was nearly perfect, at least relative to expectations, in placing second in both men's and women's to heavily favored Liberty. The men at one point looked like they could pull into contention until the only big snafus of the meet, as within moments their first-across-the-finish-line 4x100 relay was disqualified for running out of its lane and 110 hurdler Jordani Woodley tripped over the penultimate hurdle while running second.

Beyond that, the Miners exceeded their own expectations by scoring 161 points on the men's side and 138 on the women's.

"We defended our turf to the extreme," coach Mika Laaksonen said. I didn't think we had this many points on our team, either side. We competed hard. We had things going our way all three days. We had a little hiccup in middle of the meet (Sunday) on the men's side, but other than that it was a perfect meet for us."

Butler bounces back from 100 disappointment to win 200

Xavier Butler came into the 100 with the fastest qualifying time and was not happy with his fourth-place finish. He put that frustration into the 200 meters where he broke first out of the block and held a slim lead throughout to win in 20.57.

"I was running with a lot of emotion," said Butler, whose time of 10.10 in the 100 was .01 off his all-conditions best. "I was really confident in the 100, I put a lot of work into it and it didn't go as planned. I used that emotion in my 200 to stay calm and run my race."

In the 100 he got a good view of Liberty's Omari Lewis, who ran the fastest all-conditions time in the world this year as part of the fastest collegiate 100 of the year.

"It shows me what I need to work on," Butler said. "It's great having that competition, it pushes you. It's great all around."

Simpson blazes windy 100 hurdles

Marissa Simpson had reasons not to be overly optimistic entering a 100 hurdles she was favored to win, but she was determined to fight through them. At the end of her dominating gold-medal race, that meant a new all-conditions personal best that would have been a meet record if not for the win.

Leading throughout, she ran a 12.75 and the fact that it was in a 4.3 meters-per-second wind (the maximum allowable for records is 2.0) didn't dampen her excitement.

"It was amazing," she said. "Honestly I hit a few hurdles coming in, in the warmup area I hit my knee, it was bothering me, but I was like, 'I can't let that stop me. I have to come out here and give it all for my teammates.'

"It's very exciting."

UTEP rules 800

Much of the 800 meters looked like a UTEP intramural, as the Miners were sitting 1-2-3 with 200 meters to go before a 1-2-5 finish from Aron Tanui, Maxwell Kipkosgei and Kenneth Talavera.

Tanui pulled clear with 100 meters to go in a commanding kick (1:54.64) while Kipkosgei held off hard-closing Brendan Pitcher of Liberty for second (1:55.48-1:55.53).

"Execute, execute, execute," Tanui said. "I tried to stay behind (his teammates), then the last 100 I tried to move fast."

Belik stunningly wins triple jump

The upset of the meet, the kind of surprise that swings team titles, belonged to UTEP's Jakub Belik, who won his second gold medal of the meet in the triple jump. He didn't come into the event seeded, on account of he hadn't done it in three years.

The winner of Saturday's high jump had never competed collegiately in the triple jump but decided to give it a go.

"I had one practice, I took two or three jumps to make sure I could make the pit — that's the scariest part," Belik said. "I made it, barely. In this meet I did way better than I expected.

"I knew I could jump far because I'm way faster than before but since I didn't train at all, I didn't expect this. I'm really happy."

He recalls his high school personal best as being 47-feet, 1 1/4-inches, but he leaped 48-9 1/2 on this day to win by more than eight inches.

Miners go 1-2 in men's 400

The men's 400 was another big event for UTEP, as Julio Pacheco Estrada and Joshua Hill went 1-2. Estrada led the entire race, though Hill pulled on his shoulder with 50 meters to go. Estrada had the response.

"I was just trying to stay relaxed and finish," Estrada said. "I've been training hard all season so I was definitely expecting this."

Hristov claims discus gold

UTEP's Aleks Hristov was quick to say he wasn't feeling his best in Sunday's discus final, and the best of his six throws was eight feet off his season's best. It was also better than everyone else as Hristov, seeded second coming in, edged out a tightly bunched field to claim gold with a toss of 183-2.

In a way it marked his second consecutive conference championship, as he won in 2022 before missing last outdoor season to injury.

"It's not what I expected, I expected better but my back is still not 100% recovered," Hristov said. "It feels great I was able to help out my team."

Hristov briefly dropped into third place during the fifth round, but responded with his winning toss, which edged out Liberty's Desmond Coleman by one foot. Coleman had a big throw on his final attempt but fouled it. UTEP's Maurice Westmoreland had an 11-foot personal best to claim fourth in 178-6.

Bret Bloomquist can be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; @Bretbloomquist on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: UTEP's Neisha Burgher nabs three gold medals at CUSA championships