Solid performances at Penn Relays, Borderclash

PHILADELPHIA – Tatenda Tsumba, Drew Tingey, Jesse White and Shaquille Walker highlighted the weekend at the Penn State Relays with their second place performance in the distance sprint relay with a time of 3:21.55.

“We had a really good sprint medley team,” BYU track and field head coach Ed Eyestone said. “We thought we had a pretty good chance with Shaquille as our anchor. The fact of the matter is Florida had an Olympian running the 200-meter leg that gave them a lead. I was happy with the effort. I think it’s great to come home with second place at the Penn Relays.”

The men’s 4x100 meter relay team made up of Derek Lord, Tsumba, Tingey and Michael Abbott finished seventh overall with a time of 40.83.

The distance medley relay team consisting of Marcus Dickson, Max Scheible, Connor Ross and Jonathan Harper took ninth place in the Championship of America DMR finishing in 9:41.96.

Mark Carlson finished sixth overall in the 400-meter hurdles, coming in with a time of 53.01.

Alyssa Monteverde-Dalton, one of the two female athletes who competed at the Penn State Relays, placed sixth overall in the 100-meter hurdles with a season-best time of 13.57.

The other female competitor, Kaylee Packham, had a time of 1:00.94 in the 400-meter hurdles to finish ninth overall.​

“It’s fun to come here because there was a crowd of about 45,000 people there while she was running. It was a great opportunity to get out and compete in an amazing environment,” Eyestone said.

Several athletes also competed at the Utah/Idaho Borderclash in Boise, Idaho. In all, Cougar competitors placed first overall in eight different events.

On the men’s side, Zachary Blackham won the high jump after clearing 2.17 meters. Kraymer Eppich won the javelin throw with a mark of 62.95 meters. Craig Merkley won in the discus with a mark of 53.19 meters

Jefferson Jarvis set a new personal record with a mark of 17.46 meters in the shot put to take second overall. Dillon Goodman set new personal bests in both the 100 meters and 110-meter hurdles with times of 10.96 and 14.31, respectively.

Diamond Thomas had her best meet of the season by winning two events in Boise. She won both the 100 and 200 meters with times of 11.46 and 23.78, respectively. However, those times will not qualify her for regionals because the wind speeds during the events were above the NCAA limit.

Kylee Trageser won in the pole vault with a mark of 3.90 meters. ShyAndrea Jackson took first in the long jump after jumping 5.64 meters. And Sadie Nielsen beat out all other competitors in the discus with a mark of 50.83 meters.

The Cougars will be back in competition mid-week at the Weber State Twilight meet on Wednesday and Thursday. Other athletes will travel to Los Angeles on Saturday for the Oxy Collegiate Invitational.