UH will compete at the Texas Invitational starting Friday. | Courtesy of UH Athletics

Redshirt senior hammer thrower Richard Fenton, who is ranked 25th in the nation, has goals of breaking into the top 20.

With his efforts in practice and at the South Florida Collegiate Invitational on March 26 — he won in the hammer division with a 58.28 meter throw that placed second on the program’s all-time list — Fenton hopes to garner the momentum that will help him reach his goals.

“It’s really just keeping level-headed. It’s like, ‘OK, I went out there and did my job.’ Track is the most difficult sport, because it’s the only sport where 100 percent of your ability is not good enough the next week,” Fenton said. “So you have to really stay calm and work through the little areas throughout the week and just try to improve, slightly, slightly, slightly and then, all of a sudden, the big one will happen.”

Fenton and his teammates have the opportunity to test their momentum this weekend when the Cougars travel to Austin for the Texas Invitational.

Freshman Issac Williams, who jumps and runs hurdles, goes into each practice with the intention of getting better. He said practice performances determine how the meet will go.

“Basically, I think about what I did wrong and try to correct those things throughout the week. I try to focus and get better. I work on the fundamentals of my event — working on form and other things.  (I’m trying to) run low times and qualify for nationals, regionals and conference,” Williams said.

Williams ran the 200-meter dash in the last meet and finished with a time of 21.59 seconds in the finals. This week he said he is going to try to go faster.

On the women’s end of the field, sophomore Sade-Mariah Greenidge, who runs hurdles and sprints, puts every race behind her, learning from both her positive and negative performance by analyzing what works and what doesn’t. She finds this to be most helpful in preparing for her next race.

“In a race you have to make sure that your first couple of steps are your biggest push in your race,” Greenidge said. “That builds up all the energy, all and force you’re going to get because at the middle of the race you’re not going to be able to exert any more than you can. You have to start at the beginning.”
While in the last meet, Greenidge competed against only three teams and said she had great competition, which affected her performance. She said she expects more from herself when she runs the 100- and 200-meter dash at the Texas Invitational.

sports@thedailycougar.com