Aggie track gets ‘preview of the NCAA Tournament’
After taking home six titles last week, the Utah State track and field team will now face much tougher competition at the Stanford Invitational, Friday and Saturday in Palo Alto, Calif.
One of the reasons the invitational is going to be so competitive is because Stanford is hosting the Regional tournament this year and everyone wants to get a feel of the track and how things run, USU Head Coach Gregg Gensel said.
One athlete hoping to get a feel of things is Ryan Bruhn, who came home with two titles last week in the discus and the hammer throw, but he said this week will be a bit more difficult.
“It’s kind of like a preview of the NCAA tournament,” Bruhn said. “The talent in every throw is huge and if we get a couple people in the finals, then that’s a victory for us.”
To make the finals of this invitational, Bruhn said he will probably have to throw about five feet farther than his throw that earned him first place last week.
Bruhn’s situation is not unique. Each Aggie athlete will have to improve from last week’s meet in order to be on the top at the Stanford Invitational, but that is what the Aggies’ philosophy has been all year, Gensel said.
“It’s the same as indoors, we just need to keep improving,” he said. “We have some good qualifying distances and times, and I think we’ll see as the year goes on that it will just keep improving.”
Audrey Golightly, another USU athlete who placed first in the 5,000-meter run at last week’s meet, is also expecting to improve her time, but not just to get to the finals, she said. Eager to qualify for the Regional tournament, Golightly is hoping to run a time of 17:20 to 17:30.
Golightly said she cannot think of a better meet in which to qualify because of the kind of competition that will be pushing them.
For the most part, the Aggies will be competing with a healthy roster, although due to some sickness, they are going to leave some athletes home who they were expecting to compete.
“But I think we’re healthy enough to put on a good showing,” Gensel said. “Those people that we’re taking to Stanford are our better people, and we’re trying to get some great performances out of them.”
-csmo@cc.usu.edu