Personal bests set in weekend split for track
In a weekend that saw the USU track team spread out, there were a myriad of regional qualifying times and personal bests turned in.
USU had athletes at the BYU Cougar Invitational in Provo and the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto, Calif.
“I’m just happy with the progression of the team,” Head Coach Gregg Gensel said. “For the most part, everybody improved on what they were doing, which is what our goal is.”
At Stanford, USU faced some big schools, including Ohio State, Notre Dame, Michigan and Florida State. But on the first day of the two-day meet, Amy Egan and Amber Peterson won their respective events.
Egan won the 800-meters with a personal best time of 2:09.20. The time qualifies Egan for the NCAA Regional Championships at the end of May in Eugene, Ore., and moves her into second place in the USU record books.
Peterson won the 400-meter hurdles with a regional qualifying mark of 59.74. She also tied her personal best in the event.
But Egan and Peterson weren’t the only ones to have a good weekend. Gensel said they had four people run regional qualifying times, a couple of top 10 performances all-time at USU and a bunch of personal bests.
“One of the beauties of track and field is everybody can find success at some level,” he said. “If a runner runs better than they did the week before, they’ve had success.”
And that’s exactly what happened at Stanford and BYU.
Dasheek Akwenye placed sixth in the 400-meters at Stanford. Akwenye’s time of 47.69 leads the Western Athletic Conference, Gensel said.
Scott Bell placed fourth in the 400-meter hurdles with a regional qualify time of 52.40. Tony Jones, a freshman, ran a 14:26.24 in the 5,000-meters, which was good for sixth place at Stanford and sixth place in the USU record books.
Also, on Saturday, Vance Twitchell ran a regional qualifying time of 8:54.16 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and the USU men’s and women’s 4×400 relay teams turned in season bests.
The men’s relay team, which includes Akwenye, Bell, Brent Knighton and Nicholas Karren, set a new conference best with their time of 3:13.97. It was also good enough to net them fifth place at the Stanford meet. The women’s relay team ran a 3:52.74.
Kevin Liu and Chase Taylor also threw well. Liu took fourth place in the shot put, and Taylor placed second in the javelin throw.
Splitting the team up didn’t seem to bother them, as the rest of the team also turned in some good performances in Provo.
“[Splitting the team up] is a necessary evil of this sport because [Stanford] is a really competitive meet, so we can’t get everyone into it,” Gensel said. “We can only bring a handful of people, so it’s nice to have a different place to go. I guess it’s hard to split them up, but it’s better than not getting to run.”
Daniel Seethaler and Jamison Vickers turned in personal bests at BYU on Friday. Seethaler’s 54.51 in the 400-meter hurdles was good for fourth place, and Vickers’ throw of 182-02 in the javelin was also good for fourth place in that event.
On the women’s side, the 4×400 relay team ran 3:25.72 to nab fifth place, and Tara Pickett placed third in the high jump, clearing 5-3.00.
-dabake@cc.usu.edu