UW track and field have suc­cess­ful week

The Wyoming track and field teams com­peted in the TCU Invi­ta­tional at Fort Worth, Texas, last week and came away with 10 first place finishes.

Senior Jay Petsch and junior Brit­ney Jack­son par­tic­i­pated at the CSU-Pueblo Invi­ta­tional in Pueblo, Colo. Petsch won the decathlon, win­ning 6 of 10 events, while scor­ing a per­sonal record 6,884 points. Jack­son achieved a per­sonal best with 4,074 points in the hep­tathlon to place third. Petsch is ranked 25^th in the nation and needs to fin­ish in the top 24 to qual­ify for national’s.

“He’s got one more chance at the [Moun­tain West] con­fer­ence meet to try and move up, and I think he can do that,” UW track and field coach Don Yentes said about Petsch.

In Fort Worth, the win­ners for the Cow­boys were senior Sam Lam­bert, junior Jere­miah James, sopho­more Tay­lor Kelt­ing and fresh­man Tyler Skin­ner. Lam­bert took first place in the ham­mer throw with a toss of 188’3”. James won the long and triple jump events with leaps of 22’ 10.75” and 50’ 6.25,” respec­tively. Kelt­ing won the 5,000-meter run in a time of 14:53.66, while Skin­ner took the high jump with a height of 6’ 6.75”. … Con­tinue Reading

Wyoming Lights up Shine Invitational

The Wyoming Indoor Track & Field teams dom­i­nated the Robert Shine Invi­ta­tional Fri­day night at the War Memo­r­ial Field House in Laramie, in their final match before the Moun­tain West Con­fer­ence Championships.

Wyoming was led by defend­ing MWC long and triple jump cham­pion Jere­miah James, as he posted the 11^th best triple jump in nation to win the event. His leap of 16.00m is the sec­ond longest triple jump in War Memo­r­ial Field House his­tory behind cur­rent jumps coach and UW Track & Field Hall of Famer Quincy Howe (16.15m). James has already qual­i­fied for the NCAA Cham­pi­onships.

“It feels really good,” James said. “I thought it wasn’t that far because I really wasn’t feel­ing the inten­sity, but I’m very pleased with my jump.”

Jen­nifer Schmitz won the 55-meter hur­dles with a personal-record time of 8.05 to beat out team­mate Katy Halls’ time of 8.26.

“It feels good, I’ve been sick this whole week and I didn’t prac­tice pretty much at all this week,” Schmitz said. “It felt good to have a good race, espe­cially before conference.”

Other Cow­girl win­ners were Chantel Bern­abo in the 55-meter dash (7.26), Gretchen McCormick in the 400-meter dash (1:03.46), Tay­lor Gard­ner, Olivia Heas­ton, Erica Ander­son, and McCormick in the 4x400-meter relay (4:02.36), Johnna Jef­fries in the high jump (1.70m), and Erin Urbanoski in the long jump (5.59m).

The other lead­ers for the Cow­boys con­sisted of Stephen Michel in the 55-meter dash (6.31), Keith Brauneis in the 200-meter dash (22.82), Ken Lane in the 600-yard run (1:16.62), Bran­don Dou­glass in the 55-meter hur­dles (7.62), Mark Flegel, Jason Easley, Andy McKen, and Lane in the 4x400-meter relay (3:36.77), Tyler Skin­ner in the high jump (2.08m), and Lenyn Leonce in the long jump (7.20m).

Over­all UW head Track & Field coach Don Yentes was pleased with his teams efforts.

“We had some really nice per­for­mances today,” said Yentes. “Jere­miah James, his jump is the 11^th best in the coun­try, and that’s pretty salty, that was excel­lent. Stephen Michel had a great meet, Jen­nifer Schmitz ran a P.R. in the 55-hurdles, Mario Har­ris ran a nice job, his first time he’d ever ran the 55 (meter dash), and Bran­don Dou­glass and Michael Tasker did nice jobs in the hur­dles. Hope­fully it will be a start­ing point for next week. This is a team that’s young and we’ve got­ten bet­ter every week. If they can just keep going and trust their train­ing, I think we can mix it up a lit­tle bet­ter in the con­fer­ence meet next week.”

The Air Force men were led by Justin Man­ches­ter in the 400-meter dash (50.95), and Rob Sim­mons in the pole vault (5.05m), while the women vic­tors were Phae­len French in the 600-yard run (1:31.51), Kim­ber Shealy (holds the War Memo­r­ial Field House pole vault record at 4.25m) won the pole vault with a throw of 4.05m, and Sara Neubauer won the shot put and weight throw with dis­tances of 16.13m and 18.75m.

Tyson Williams of Col­orado State won the men’s shot put with a toss of 17.31m.

Wyoming will now pre­pare for the MWC Indoor Track & Field Cham­pi­onships on Feb. 25–27 in Albu­querque, N.M, on the cam­pus of the Uni­ver­sity of New Mex­ico.