Cougars Fight Through Elements At Cal Poly Invitational

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- The BYU men's and women's track teams fought through wind and cold weather on their way to 12 event wins at the team's first outdoor competition of the season in the Cal Poly Invitational.

The weather kept the Cougars from making top marks but Lindsay Johnson was able to finish with a provisional national qualifying mark in the javelin with a throw of 161-01.00 (49.10), giving her the win in that event.

"We had some pretty good marks in spite of the conditions," BYU women's head coach Craig Poole said. "All in all I was very pleased with the outcome of the meet and I would say it was one of our top experiences since we started competing in the meet."

Johnson was joined by Jolee Gillespie in the 1500 and Candace Clifford in the high jump as individual event winners. Gillespie finished in 4:36.13 on the 1500 to claim the title and Clifford cleared a height of 5-07.25 (1.71) to win the high jump crown.

Along with the individual event winners, the BYU women's track team won the 4x400-meter relay in 3:53.01 to round out the winners on the women's side. The Cougar women also had six top three finishers on the day.

Kendal Hathaway finished in 1:02.84 and Amy Robinson in 1:03.54 to finish one-two in the 400-meter hurdles. Aimee Nichols had a personal best throw of 151-06.00 (46.18)in the discus to finish second for BYU. Melissa Dyer cleared a height of 12-00.00 (3.66) in the pole vault for third.

Other top three finishers for the Cougars were Breanne Sandberg, who finished third in the 5000 with a time of 17:10.45 and Jennifer Rockwell was third in the 400 (56.75) to round out the top finishers for the BYU women.

The BYU men were led by Greg Flint, who swept the hurdle events by winning the 110-meter hurdles in 14.64 and the 400-meter hurdles in 52.27 to lead the Cougars to eight individual event victories.

"For our first meet out I was pleased," BYU men's head coach Mark Robison said. "It was a little cold and really windy but I thought we performed very well for not having many opportunites to train outdoors to this point."

Jeff Hansen won the pole vault title at a height of 16-07.00 (5.06) to give BYU their only title in the field events. Mark Nevers won the 5000 witha time of 14:44.39 amd Tyler Bushnell won the 3000-meter steeplechase in a time of 9:20.19. The other Cougar individual title came in the 800, where Mao Tjiroze won in 1:51.96. The Cougars also had victories in the 4x100 relay (41.29) and the 4x400 relay in 3:13.35.

Daniel Arrhenius also had a good meet for the Cougars with two second-place finishes, in the shot put with a toss of 54-06.50 (16.63) and the discus with a throw of 169-06.50 (51.67), helping the Cougar men to 10 top three finishes.

Other top three finishers for BYU were Daniel Parkinson, who was second in the javelin with a mark of 185-05.00 (56.52). David Pendergrass had a jump of 6-06.50 (1.99) to finish second and Ammon Dahl cleared a height of 6-04.75 (1.95) to finish third in the high jump.

Matt Rowe was second in the 400 with a time of 47.87. Steve Barrus finished second in the 1500, covering the distance in 3:53.20 and Chad Simkins was second in the 800 with a mark of 1:53.13. Matt Nielsen finished second in the 200 (21.44) and was pushed by teammate Kish Beverley, who finished third in 21.64 to round out the Cougars' top finishers.