Cougars Compete Twice Over The Weekend

PROVO -- Completing a busy weekend of track and field, several members of the BYU women's team flew back from the Texas Relays in time to compete for the second time this week at the BYU Cougar Invitational. The meet marked the first home event of the season, and gave the Cougars an opportunity to see how they stacked up against mostly in-state competition.

Sophomore Nan Evans highlighted the BYU meet with an early win in just the second running event of the meet. Evans turned in a time of 10:21.43 (after altitude conversion) in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, a mark which moves her into second place in the country and puts her withing two seconds of the NCAA automatic qualifying standard. Teammates Katie Martin (10:50.83) and Katie Moon (10:53.43) finished second and third, respectively, both surpassing the NCAA provisional mark. The Cougar distance squad also recorded a sweep in the women's 5,000 meters with sophomore Sarah Ellett finishing first in a time of 18:14.88 (unadjusted), followed by Emili Lawson (18:24.19) and Emily Mars (18:45.73). Other event winners for the women included Becky Beachler (45'00.50") in the shot put, M.E. Clayton (37'10.75") in the triple jump, Nikki Hughes (19'04.25") in the long jump, Analee Carter (5'06.00"), Miriam Glenn (14.24) in the 100m hurdles, Andrea Combs (57.80) in the 400m, Misty Jorgensen (12.02) in the 100m, Holly Haguewood (1:00.21) in the 400m hurdles and Aubrie Latimore (25.23) in the 200 meters. For the men's team, senior Gary Wilson outdistanced the field in the 1500 meters, winning the race in 3:56.60, and Blake Russon cleared 15'06" to take first in the pole vault competition.

At the Texas Relays, the BYU men's team turned in several performances to add to the school record books. The 4x400 meter relay team of Matt Nielsen, Chris Kemp, Kish Beverly and Mao Tjiroze won the event in 3:08.43, the second fastest time in BYU history. Junior Dan Uffens recorded his best mark this season in the javelin with a throw of 21'05.00", which puts him fifth in the school records. Junior All-American Jeff Hansen cleared 17'10.50" for a fifth-place finish in the pole vault, missing his own school record by merely one-half inch. Sophomore All-American Curtis Pugsley finished third in the decathlon with a total of 7519 points and provisionally qualified for the NCAA championships. After turning in the fastest qualifying time in the preliminaries of the men's 100 meters at 10.14, senior All-American Kenneth Andam passed on the finals of the university division to compete in the invitational race. Andam finished fourth in 10.19.

With a total of ten athletes competing in five different events at the Texas meet, the Cougar women recorded a pair of individual victories and several other solid performances. With a mark of 146'08.00", junior Carrie Sanders took first place in section B of the javelin. Becky Beachler also recorded a win with a toss of 49'01.75" in section B of the shot put. Senior All-American Jeana Bingham cleared 5'10.50" to take fifth in the high jump competition, and junior Holly Haguewood ran 1:00.78 to finish 13th in the 400 meter hurdles.

Next week, the Cougars will travel north to Ogden, Utah to compete in the Weber State Invitational.

Results of the Texas Relays can be found at www.texassports.com