Track sends eight to nationals
It was another successful season for track and field coach Greg Gensell and his team. On May 14, the men’s team placed second and the women’s team third at the WAC championships in Hawaii.
Sprinter DJ Smith won the 100-meters with a time of 10.51, while freshman Clint Silcock won the high jump. Senior Trevor Ball put a finishing brush stroke on his career at Utah State by winning the 5,000-meters.
Amber Judd’s second-place finishes in the 200-meter and 400-meter hurdles led the women’s side.
Although Gensell qualified his remarks by saying the Aggies were used to winning conference championships outright in the Big West, he said the showing was “not bad for our first year in the WAC.”
The Aggies followed up their strong performance by coming out at the NCAA regionals and faring well enough to send a school-record eight athletes on to the NCAA championships. Ball tore up the field again, running a 14:58.80 to finish eighth in the 5,000.
Junior Jennifer Twitchell and Kristen Guymon, a senior, also dominated at the regionals, placing first and second respectively in the 1,500-meters.
“There’s different things to measure by,” Gensell said when asked if it was the best season yet of his career at USU. “If you measure it by how we did at the NCAA regionals, it was the best regional meet we’ve ever had.”
On the men’s side, the three record-setting qualifiers were Smith, steeplechaser Vance Twitchell and senior Justin Wickard competing in the 110-meter hurdles. The other five qualifiers were women, which is a school record in its own right.
The five women were Guymon and Twitchell in the 1,500, Judd in the 400 hurdles, Lacey Hulbert in the heptathlon and Stacey Lifferth in steeplechase.
The highest finishers at the NCAA tournament were Hulbert, Lifferth and Vance Twitchell, who all finished 21st. Hulbert was as high as 10th entering the final day of competition, but fell behind by the end. Five of the eight qualifiers are returning for Gensell this year: Smith, Judd, Lifferth and Jennie and Vance Twitchell.
Gensell said he places a high degree of importance on academics for his athletes, a commitment rewarded by both the men’s and women’s team being honored by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
“The main reason the kids come here is to get an education,” Gensell said. “One of the things we as a staff decided early on is that we were going to stress that aspect of the student-athlete.”
Only two other women’s WAC teams received the prestigious academic honor, and only two others from the state: Weber State and the University of Utah.
Kathryn Duhadway, Tiffany Strickland, Judd, Guymon, Lifferth and Twitchell were named to the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Women’s All-Academic Track and Field Team.
On the men’s side, Ball and Twitchell were named USTFCCCA All-Academic Track & Field. USU was the only men’s WAC program to receive the academic recognition.
-graham@cc.usu.edu