Track Heads to Elite Meet in New York

PROVO -- In the final weeks before the Mountain West Conference Championships, the BYU track teams will compete in the premier meet of the season this weekend at the New Balance Invitational in New York City.

“This is one of the great track meets in North America,” BYU women’s head coach Craig Poole said. “As far as a collegiate meet, everybody who is anybody is here. The competition is unbelievably strong, but it should be exciting and I expect us to get a lot of qualifying marks.”

The women’s team takes its No. 3 ranking into New York expecting to continue its national success against top competition. The men’s team looks to continue improving and will build off the success of last week’s Washington Invitational.

This meet is one of the first scored meets of the season and the Cougars will look to do well on an individual and team level to prepare for the conference and national championships.

“They do score this meet and we have set our alignment up so people are in position to score as much as possible,” Poole said. “Going up against teams like Texas A&M and Oregon makes scoring a bit more difficult, but we should do well.”

A portion of both teams will also be heading to Pocatello, Idaho for the Mountain States Games to compete against teams from Idaho State, Montana, Montana State, Utah, Utah Valley, Weber State and Southern Utah.

More than 100 schools are slated to compete in New York and the meet will begin Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. MST with the women’s shot put and is scheduled to conclude at 3:47 p.m. MST on Saturday with the men’s 1600-meter relay.

The Mountain States Games will begin at 12:00 p.m. MST on Friday with the men’s heptathlon 60-meter dash and will finish with the 1600-meter relay on Saturday at 3:15 p.m. MST.

CLICK HERE for a webcast and live results from the New Balance Invitational.