Preseason top 50 rankings include 10 Utah State track and field athletes
Utah State men and women’s outdoor track and field teams rank among the nation’s best in 10 events according to the USTFCCCA Division I Preseason National Team Computer Rankings released Wednesday. Athletes qualified for the individual rankings based on their best mark during their last outdoor season competed in.
As a team, the Aggie men rank 45th in that nation which is the highest of any Western Athletic Conference school and the second highest of any Utah school. The women’s 116th ranking is the second highest of the Utah school while being the third highest of the seven WAC schools in the rankings.
Seniors Clint Silcock, Mike Pyrtle and Philip Noble along with juniors Daniel Howell, Brian McKenna and Joe Canavan and the 4x100m relay team from last season received the preseason top 50 honors for the Utah State men. For the USU women, seniors Lindsey Spencer and Shannon Prince along with junior Sonia Grabowska were tabbed with the top 50 accolades.
Silcock is tied for third-place in the high jump with Derek Drouin of Indiana with a mark of 2.26m (7-05.00). Silcock cleared that mark at the Utah State Mark Faldmo Invitational on April 17 and it stands as the second-best outdoor high jump in school history. Silcock also ranks second in the nation this season with a jump of 2.11m (6-11.00) at the Willie Williams Classic in Tucson, Ariz. on March 18.
Pyrtle ran a 10.33 in the 100m preliminaries at the WAC Outdoor Championships on May 14 qualifying him for 24th-place, tied with Martynas Jurgilas of Kansas State. Pyrtle was also a member of the 4x100m relay team, along with fellow senior Armahd Lewis, that is ranked 34th in the nation with a time of 40.05. The other two members of the relay team were Nick Karren and Matt Maughan. Karren is currently assisting the Aggies as a volunteer coach.
Noble ranks 44th in the decathlon with 6,828 points which he completed at the WAC Outdoor Championships on May 12-13. Noble also ranks eighth all-time in USU school history with that point total. McKenna qualified with a USU record time of 29:00.76 in the 10,000m tabbing him for 19th-place. He ran the time at the Stanford Payton Jordan Invitational in Stanford, Calif., on May 1.
Howell tabbed a 48th-place ranking with Utah State’s ninth-best time in the 3000m steeplechase which he ran at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor West Regional meet on May 27. Canavan received the number 15 spot in the shot put with a throw of 18.40m (60-04.50) at the Utah-Idaho Border Clash in Boise, Idaho on April 30. Howell and Canavan also rank fourth (9:16.51) and fifth (17.59m) in the nation this season in their respective events with their marks from the Willie Williams Classic in Tucson, Ariz. on March 19.
Grabowska is tied at No. 19 in the nation with four other athletes in the pole vault with a mark of 4.10m which she cleared at the 2010 NCAA West Regional meet on May 27. She also holds the top vault in school history of 4.21m which she cleared in 2009.
Spencer ranks in the top 50 in two events, tied for 34th in the discus with a throw of 50.81m (166-08.00)and tied 46th in the hammer throw with a mark of 56.23m (184-05.00). She performed the marks at the UCLA Invitational on April 8 and at the Utah State Mark Faldmo Invitational on April 17, respectively. Prince joins Spencer in the discus top 50 as Prince ranks 40th with a mark of 50.13m (164-05.00) which she also performed at the USU Mark Faldmo Invitational on April 17.
The Utah State men are one five Utah schools and four WAC insitutions that have team rankings. They are joined by BYU (11th), Weber State (104th), Southern Utah (130th) and Utah Valley (144th) for the Utah schools and Boise State (60th), Louisiana Tech (94th) and Idaho (124th) for the WAC.
On the women’s side they are joined by four Utah schools, BYU (17th), Utah (136th), Weber State (137th) and Utah Valley (155th) while six other WAC schools are ranked as a team. They include Louisiana Tech (72nd), Hawai’i (91st), Fresno State (118th), Idaho (125th), Nevada (142nd) and Boise State (153rd).
Utah State will be in action again on April 1, at the New Mexico Invitational in Albuquerque, N.M., and again at the Sacramento State Invitational on April 7-9. USU hosts its lone home meet of the year, the Mark Faldmo Invitational on Saturday, April 16 at the Ralph Maughan Track Stadium.