Cougars Perform Well at 2012 Robison Invitational

PROVO, Utah—On a beautiful day at the Clarence F. Robison Track, a large crowd was present to see All-American Miles Batty attempt to become just the second runner in history to complete a sub-four minute mile in the state of Utah.  Batty made a valiant attempt at completing the sub-four mile, finishing in 4:04.53.

Jared Ward came in second in the seeded mile, with a time of 4:09.35.

Along with Batty, the BYU men’s track and field team found much success at the Robison Invitational, the Cougar’s last home meet of the 2012 season.

“I thought the meet went really, really well,” men’s head coach Mark Robison said. “There was good competition, we performed very well and the conditions were very nice.  It was a fun, successful weekend.”

Fanfan Charles led the sprints with a second place finish in the 100m, finishing in 10.40.  Jason Hinds also performed well, finishing fourth in the same event in 10.65.

Jason Hinds also ran well in 200m, finishing second with a time of 21.42.

In the middle distances, Ryan Waite and Steven Hart finished third and fourth in the 400m, finishing with times of 48.42 and 48.56, respectively.

Justin Hedin secured the victory in the seeded 800m race with a time of 1:50.42, with Shaquille Walker coming in a close second in 1:51.15.

Steve Morrin finished first in the open mile in 4:21.71. Steve Flint and Josh Adams finished one-two in the 3000m steeplechase, finishing in 9:11.12 and 9:11.21, respectively.

BYU pulled first place finishes in both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.  The team of Charles, Hinds, James Ghormley and Cade Lindahl won the 4x100m in 40.60 while Rhyan Atrice, Chris Carter, Lindahl and Walker won the 4x400m in 3:12.38.

The Cougars had strong performances in the field events, with five first-place finishes and three events in which BYU finished one-two-three.

Colby Barber won the shot put, throwing 16.77m (55’ 00.25”), and Kyle Mills tied his personal record with his victory in the triple jump, jumping 15.36m (50’ 04.75”). Konrad Rywelski finished third in the triple jump with a distance of 13.94m (45’ 8.75”).

In the high jump, Russell Nielson secured first with a height of 2.14m (7’ 00.25”) and Adam Hine finished second by clearing the same height with more attempts, with Dakoda John coming in third jumping 2.08m (6’ 10.00”).  With these jumps, the Cougars have had three athletes clear seven feet this season.

Brayden Bringhurst narrowly missed first place in the pole vault, clearing 4.92m (16’ 01.75”) in more attempts than the unattached Whitney Neves, and Tyler Brown came in second with a height of 4.77m (15’ 07.75”).

Although windy conditions hindered the javelin, Blaine Baker still secured the victory with a throw of 59.86m (196’ 04.75”) and Chris Reno and Keith Keller took second and third, throwing 58.20m (190’ 11.25”) and 55.04m (180’ 07.00”), respectively.

BYU’s decathletes also performed well, with Chase Dalton  coming in first with 7183 points, Joshua Weirich finishing second with 7095 points and Isaac Robison securing third with 6673 points.

The Cougars continue their season on Wednesday, May 2 at the Weber State Twilight. Following the meet at Weber State, BYU will compete in its final regular season meet at Georgia Tech before beginning their postseason at the NCAA West Regional on May 24.

Final results from the BYU Robison Invitational can be found at runnercard.com.