Idaho tourney offers toughest track competition yet
Meeting its toughest competition as of yet this season, the Utah State track and field team finished with two titles at the Boise State United Heritage Invitational Saturday.
As one of the first-place finishers for the Aggies, Justin Wickard was not only able to claim the title in the 60-meter dash, but he also set a school record with a time of 7.90 seconds, beating his old record of 7.92 set at the Air Force Invitational three weeks earlier.
The other USU athlete to claim a title was Rob Crockett on high jump, clearing 6-08.75.
Coming home with only two titles, compared to the 12 titles the Aggies claimed last week, doesn’t worry USU at all though, said Head Coach Gregg Gensel.
“This tournament’s competition was a lot tougher than a lot of the other tournaments we’ve been in this season,” he said. “It was pretty stiff competition and we basically held our own.”
For instance, Josh Sides, who normally is a top three finisher, placed seventh in the shot put. But because of the competition he was facing, along with the rest of the throwing team, the coaches are quite pleased with the results, Gensel said.
Aside from Wickard and Crockett, the Aggies ended with six other athletes finishing in the top three.
On the women’s side, Melanie Marek in the 3,000-meter run finished third with a time of 10:21.98 along with Katie Farner, who finished third in the high jump with a height of 5-05.00. Kathleen Hobbs also finished in third place with a time of 8.06 in the 60-meter dash.
On the men’s side Matt Price on the high jump, ended the meet in third place behind Crockett with a 6-06.75 jump. In the triple jump, Lonnie Carter also finished in third with a distance of 48-10.75, along with Joel Johnson, who tied for third in the pole vault clearing 5-05.00.
Although they didn’t finish with as many titles as they had the week before, Gensel said the Boise Invitational was still a
victory.
“We improved in a lot of areas,” he said. “Our throwers did well again, two of our distance runners did well again, although we only brought three, and Justin Wickard did well again.”
In addition, the Aggies recorded seven indoor all-time top-10 scores and times, the women with two and the men with five.
The Aggies will be in action again this Saturday as they travel to Montana to compete in the Montana State Invitational.
–csmo@cc.usu.edu