Utah State Track Racks Up 12 Titles at Weekend Invitational

The Utah State track team took advantage of its only home indoor meet of the season as it claimed 12 titles in the Wilson Motor Invitational on Saturday afternoon in the Fieldhouse.

"I think we did really well," said Head Coach Gregg Gensel. "We were looking for improvement, and we invited teams in that could give us competition and our kids responded."

Of the 12 titles won at the meet, the USU women's team claimed two and the men's side claimed 10, including six field titles.

The women were led by freshman Kelli Burton, who won the shot put with a throw of 15.22 meters, and Melanie Marek, who won the 3,000-meter run with a time of 10:29.19.

For the men's team, it was the field events and the distance runners that led the way.

Setting a personal best with a throw of 18.32, Ryan Bruhn won the weight throw 60-01.25 feet, and teammate Josh Sides won the shot put with a distance of 56-00.00.

Although the throwing team performed well, coach Craig Carter said there is room for improvement.

"I just know there's a lot more potential there," he said. "Their attitude seemed to be a little bit better this week in practice and hopefully it will carry on to the rest of the meets. But I'm very pleased with today."

Also in the field events Matt Price placed first for USU in the high jump, jumping 2.08, and Ben McDaniel won the long jump with a 5.90 jump and the triple jump with a distance of 12.58.

Joel Johnson also helped his team in the pole vault by placing first after clearing 4.70.

In addition to the field events, USU had a little help from the distance runners, along with Justin Wickard, who took the 60-meter hurdles at the Wilson Invitational for the second year in a row with a time of 8.01 seconds.

Of the four distance events, three of them were won by the USU men's team, which was competing in their first meet of the season.

Trevor Ball won the 3,000-meter run with a time of 8:51.28, David Danley won the 5,000-meter run with 15:28.26 and Mitch Zundel won the mile with the time of 4:23.73.

With Marek on the women's side, a total of four USU distance runners placed first at the meet, but that was not necessarily their goal.

"I was just racing, I wasn't going for any time or anything like that for the first meet," Zundel said.

Zundel was actually surprised he did so well, considering how much practice he's missed due to sickness, he said.

Although they did do better than they expected they would, a lot of the reason the Aggies feel they performed so well is because of the home crowd, Marek said.

"I had a lot of my family and my husband's family up cheering and stuff, and that pumps me up," she said. "I do a lot better when I know my family is here."

Other notable performances came from Carrie Bitton, who placed second in the high jump; Kathleen Hobbs, who placed second in the 60-meter dash; Dayna Barrett, 60-meter hurdles; Jill Steele, 800-meter run; Lida Clapier, mile run and the USU 4x400-meter relay, all who placed third on the women's team.

Overall the Aggies feel great about their performance, Gensel said.

"I said it before; each meet we try to get a little bit better and I saw a lot better things today than I did the last time we competed," he said.

By Chad Morris;csmo@cc.usu.edu
Photos by Scott Davis