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Braden Taylor | Posted: 17 Mar 2018 | Updated: 8 Nov 2020
Braden Taylor

First weekend of outdoor season full of personal bests for Cougars

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LOS ANGELES – Derek Sorensen and Ashton Riner highlight a day full of personal records as the BYU track and field team completed the final day of events at the USC Trojan Invitational and the Hornet Invitational on Saturday.

 

“I am really proud of how the team competed across all the categories,” BYU head coach Ed Eyestone said. “They looked really good, and the coaches did a great job of getting the team prepared. We were performing at a very high level and that is something you always want to see, especially at the first meet of the season.”

 

Sorensen earned two personal records on Saturday at the USC Trojan Invitational. He took first place in the 100m with a time of 10.46 and ran a 20.97 in the 200m to finish second. Teammate Clark Brown ran a 10.49 and finished just behind Sorensen for second place in the 100m to give the Cougars the top two finishers in the event.

 

Riner threw her first javelin in a BYU uniform for a meet-best 48.13m and now ranks No. 7 on the school’s all-time record list. The freshman’s first-place mark should be good enough to qualify for NCAA regionals. Payge Cuthbertson took second in the javelin with a throw of 45.70m, a mark that is better than the average regional-qualifying distance from the past five years.


Alyssa Dalton clocked a 13.54 in the 100m hurdles and finished second in her first meet back competing for BYU after missing last year with a medical redshirt. Her time has qualified for regionals in years past and puts her in a good position to potentially compete at the NCAA West Preliminaries for the third time in her career.

 

The Cougars had three of the top four finishers in the men’s 800m with David Graham taking first with a time of 1:51.22. Marcus Dickson ran a 1:52.55 to take second and Max Scheible earned a personal-best 1:54.18 to finish fourth.

 

Anna Camp took first in both the 800m and mile at the USC Invitational. She set a career-record 2:08.12 in the 800m and ran a 4:44.13 in the mile. Madelyn Dickson came in six-hundredths of a second behind Camp (4:44.19) to take second and Kate Hunter finished fourth with a personal-record 4:50.51.

 

Keesha Miller and Haley Rogers were only separated by hundredths of a second in their top-three finish in the 100m dash. Miller clocked an 11.93 to place second and Rogers ran an 11.98 for third. Rogers also competed in the 200m where she broke her career record with a time of 24.49.

 

Jefferson Jarvis competed well for BYU in the discus and shot put, finishing in the top three in both events. Jarvis threw for 17.06m in the shot put to take second and finished third in the discus with a mark of 52.08m.

 

A small group of Cougars containing the jumpers, multi-event athletes, pole vaulters and some middle-distance athletes competed at the Hornet Invitational at Sacrament State on Friday and Saturday.

 

Kevin Nielsen competed in the decathlon for BYU at the Hornet Invitational and finished with top-three marks in the first five events (100m, long jump, shot put, high jump and 400m) to end day one in the lead with 3828 points. Nielsen picked up where he left off on the second day of the decathlon and had the second-best marks in both the 110m hurdles and discus throw but ended up not competing in the final three events (pole vault, javelin and 1500m).

 

Andrea Stapleton-Johnson took first in the high jump for the Cougars with a jump of 1.76m and Nicole Lord finished third with a height of 1.73m. Pole vaulters Sierra Hansen and Elise Machen-Romney tied for third in the event with a clearance of 3.75m. Both cleared the height on their first attempts but failed to clear 3.90m in three attempts.


A recap of Friday's events can be found here.

For full results of the USC Trojan Invitational, click here.

For full results of the Hornet Invitational, click here.

 

The Cougars will travel next to compete in the Aztec Invitational in San Diego on Friday, March 23.

 

 
Jenessa Mann | Posted: 13 Mar 2018 | Updated: 8 Nov 2020
Jenessa Mann

BYU track and field kicks off outdoor season with two meets

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PROVO, Utah – The BYU track and field team kicks off its outdoor season with two meets on Friday, March 16 with the USC Trojan Invitational in Los Angeles and the Hornet Invitational in Sacramento.

“These meets will be our first outdoor meets of the year so we’re very excited about that,” head coach Ed Eyestone said. “We’re hoping to get some regional marks right off the bat.”

Multi-event athletes, pole vaulters, jumpers and some middle-distance runners will head to the Hornet Invitational and the rest of the athletes will compete at the USC Trojan Invitational.

Eyestone will head to the USC Trojan Invitational and looks forward to watching the athletes who made it to the national meet last year compete again this year. These athletes include runners Jacob Heslington, Clayson Shumway and Porter Reddish. He expects them to earn regional marks this weekend.

“I’ll be very surprised if we’re not leading the nation after this weekend in at least a couple events,” Eyestone said.

Assistant coach Diljeet Taylor will take a group of runners with her to the USC Trojan Invitational as well.

Taylor hopes to see Madelyn Brooks, Anna Camp, Maddie Cannon and Emma Gee earn regional marks this meet. She expects two incoming freshman, Alena Ellsworth and Karina Haymore, to do well and looks forward to Avery Walker’s performance. Walker recently joined the team from the BYU women’s soccer team.

Associate head coach Mark Robison will take a group of athletes to the Hornet Invitational. He hopes to see multi-event athlete Kevin Nielsen do well in this meet. Andrea Stapleton made it to indoor nationals this year and Robison expects her to qualify for regionals this weekend.

A schedule for the USC Trojan Invitational can be found here.

Follow BYU track and field on twitter @BYUTFXC to keep up on the action, or visit the schedule page to find live stats.