Ags win six events at BYU
Utah State’s men’s and women’s track and field teams came home with six event winners after competing at the Brigham Young Invitational on Friday.
“We did great today. We saw a lot of improvements. We had some region qualifiers and a lot of people with season bests,” USU head coach Gregg Gensel said.
The men’s performance was highlighted by the 400-meter run and 4×400-meter relay. Senior Dasheek Akwenye improved on his regional-qualifying time by running a 46.83 to win the race. His time is the fastest in the Western Athletic Conference this season. Akwenye was also a part of the 4×400 relay team that claimed first place by running a time of 3:14.47. Other members of the relay team are senior Brett Knighton, sophomore Sean Wallace and junior Brandon Waller.
Junior Keith Williams won the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.80, which is the fastest time in the conference so far this year.
“We wanted to see some progress in this meet and we did,” Gensel said. “We saw a lot of progress out of the younger kids and out of some of the veterans. With those results, you have to think that we are at least going in the right direction.”
Senior Chase Taylor won the javelin with a distance of 196-feet-1-inch, while sophomore Andrew Niccoli ran a winning time of 1:54.19 in the 800-meter run.
The distance runners for the men finished strong by having four runners finish consecutively. The pack of Aggies was led by sophomore Jason Holt, who finished second place overall with a time of 3:58.17. Junior Seth Wold came in third (3:58.89), followed by fourth place freshman Hunter Nielson (4:00.35), and in fifth was Niccoli with a time of 4:00.59.
The women were led by freshman pole vaulter Sonia Grabowska, who won the pole vault with a height of 11-feet-5.75-inches. Her finish was the eighth-best height in USU history.
Junior Katie Thatcher improved on her season-best time in the 400-meter hurdles by running a time of 1:00.98, which was good enough for second place.
In the 400-meter dash, freshman Katelyn Jensen was third with a time of 56.79. Jensen comes to Utah State from Ogden High School, where she was a state champion in 100-meter, 4×100-meter relay, 200-meter, 400-meter and long jump.
Senior Stacie Dorius and sophomore Erin Stratton led the way for the women’s distance runners with times of 4:40.26 and 4:40.54, respectively. The times were good enough for third and fourth place overall.
Overall on the day, the Aggies had 29 top-five finishes. Gensel attributes that to having two weeks to prepare for the meet. “The thing you want when you start off the season is to see where everybody’s at and what they need to work on,” Gensel said. “We saw things in our first meet that we needed to work on, and we had two weeks to work on those things.” Next up for the Aggies will the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner Kersee Invitational in Los Angeles, Calif., this Thursday through Saturday. – sam.bryner@aggiemail.usu.edu