Track hopes to qualify more athletes for nationals at Micron Invite
The Utah State University track and field team is heading to Boise State University Friday and Saturday for the Micron Invitational.
“This should be a good meet,” Head Coach Gregg Gensel said. “It’s an opportunity to keep getting better.”
So far Joel Johnson and Brett Guymon are the only Aggies who have qualified for the NCAA Outdoor Championships to be held May 29 to June 1 in Baton Rouge, La.
Johnson qualified for nationals in the decathlon at the Cal/Nevada Heptathlon/Decathlon meet in Sacramento, Calif., April 18. Guymon has qualified in the 100-meter dash.
Gensel said several other Aggies are close to qualifying and could in the next few meets.
Kristi Connors, Justin Wickard, Shae Bair, Dwayne Foster, Sandra Reategui, Kristin Coombs, Maurice Jenkins and Brad Bair all have a chance to qualify for nationals, he said.
Gensel said his main goal for the rest of the season is preparing for the Big West Championships which will be held at the University of California Irvine May 15 to 18.
“We only have three meets left this year, so we want to make the best of every opportunity,” Gensel said. “Our goal is always to try and win the Conference meet.”
He said the men’s team has a very good shot at winning the BWC champioship.
“I like our chances on the men’s side,” he said. “We control our own destiny. If we do our part well, we have a good chance to win.”
Gensel said the women’s team also has a chance at winning, though would be harder pressed to win than the men’s team.
“Some things definitely need to happen on the women’s side if we are going to win,” he said. “Other teams have to fall off a bit and not do as good as predicted for us to win.”
Besides the Micron Invitational Friday and Saturday, the Aggies have two more meets before the conference championships. They are slated to compete in the Clarence Robison Invitational on May 3 and 4 and the Utah Collegiate meet May 9, both at BYU.
Gensel said the team will keep training hard in preparation for conference.
“Conference is still a month away, so we’ll keep training and working hard,” he said. “We won’t start tapering for a couple of weeks, so we’ll work really hard until then.
“I’ll sit down next week and see what we need to do to prepare to do our best at conference,” he said.
The Micron Invitational is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. Saturday.