Bobcats in Contention Through Opening Events at Big Sky Meet

Friday, February 24

Pocatello, ID

10 a.m.

Montana State University

Big Sky Indoor Championship - Day Two

MSU's first place men's DMR squad of Diego Leon, Zach Kughn, Bill Yeager and Martin Ponce

Photo by: ISU Sports Information

Bobcats in Contention Through Opening Events at Big Sky Meet

2/24/2017 9:47:00 PM | Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field

Big Sky Championship Results (Day 2)Big Sky Championship Results (Day 2)

Montana State earned three first-place finishes and several others qualified for finals events Saturday to put the Bobcats into a solid position heading into the final day of the Big Sky Indoor Track and Field Championships

By: Andrew Pedersen

POCATELLO, Idaho – The Montana State men's track and field team accumulated three first-place performances and the women's team had several individuals qualify for finals in their respective events, which has put the Bobcats in strong position at the Big Sky Conference Indoor Championships Friday, Feb. 24, inside of Idaho State's Holt Arena.

MSU's men's team is currently in first through the first six events scored with 43 points. The Bobcats are 10.5 points ahead of second-place Northern Arizona and 15 ahead of third-place Southern Utah. The women's team is in sixth with 19.5 points, but trails third-place Weber State by just 5.5 points.

"Both teams have really done well," Montana State head coach Dale Kennedy said. "We're going into the third day of the championships qualified for finals in the track events. We had a really good first day in the event finals."

Senior Mason Storm got the men's side off to an impressive start by finishing off the heptathlon in first place with a career-best 5,340 points. Storm made his first trip to the podium during his indoor career and achieved a conference crown by taking third among heptathles in the 60-meter hurdles (8.42 seconds) and earning a tie for third in the pole vault with a personal-high mark of 14-00 (4.27m) Friday.

"It feels pretty great coming out and finishing out the multis," Storm said. "At the beginning it was a little wavering, but it was nice to put down some PRs in most of the seven events and show up on the big stage and get some points for our team."

Freshman Noah Martin picked up a conference championship in his Big Sky meet debut in the high jump. Martin reached a mark of 06-10.25 (2.09m) in the event, the second best performance he's put together as a Bobcat.

The men's team capped the day with a first-place showing in the distance medley relay. The relay team of Zach Kughn, Bill Yeager, Martin Ponce and Diego Leon crossed the line in a season-best time of 10:01.21.

Junior Kyle Douglass earned his first indoor medal by taking third place in the shot put behind a throw of 56-07.50 (17.26m).

The Bobcats took hold of the lead with several student-athletes picking up points throughout the day.

Senior Adam Wollant finished seventh in the 5,000 with a personal-best time of 15:20.62 to capture two points for the men's squad. MSU tacked on five more in the long jump. Freshman Caleb Neth led the 'Cats in the event with a leap of 23-05.50 (7.15m) for sixth overall and junior Alex Lewis took seventh by jumping 23-04.00 (7.11m).

Junior Aidan Pedersen had a high jump of 06-04.75 which was the same mark as the seventh-place finisher, but fell to 13th due to judge's decision. Freshman Alec Nehring was also just shy of earning points for the Bobcats with a 10th-place finish in the shot put (53-10.25).

Sophomore Alyssa Snyder was MSU's top finisher on the women's side Friday. Snyder crossed the line in the 5,000 with a time of 17:10.27, crushing her previous personal indoor best by 22 seconds.

"I think our ladies got off to a really good start and we had some pretty exciting moments with the DMR win and Noah and Mason winning," Kennedy said. "We had some surprises along the way like Adam scoring in the 5,000. The DMR is always a crap shoot because you never really know who's going to run.

"A lot of other good things happened too. It's the accumulation of points, not just the three champions. It's everybody putting it all together and we've got a ways to go."

MSU's distance medley relay squad of Madison Liechty, Elisabeth Krieger, Kimberly Parsell and Louisa Serpe earned multiple points for the Bobcats behind a 12:03.34 fourth-place finish. Sophomore Isabella Calabrese (12-05.25) earned three points for MSU with her sixth-place showing in the pole vault and senior Jacqueline Verlanic took seventh in the weight throw behind a personal-best toss of 57-05.50 (17.51m) to account for two points for the Bobcats.

Carter Theade and Callen Crawford finished 10th and 11th in the pole vault and weight throw, respectively, to just fall shy of accounting towards the team total.

Both the men's and women's teams had several individuals qualify for the finals in their respective events Saturday.

On the men's side, Jadin Casey (48.47) took fourth in the 400 prelims and Samuel Bloom (1:55.15) finished third in the 800 prelims to move into the finals tomorrow.

Junior Amanda Jaynes earned a personal best 24.35 finish in the 200 and 8.66 mark in the 60 hurdles for fourth to advance her to the finals in both. Senior Daryan Box (7.74) and sophomore Truanne Roginske (7.75) each qualified for the 60 dash finals. Freshman McKenna Ramsay took third in the 400 prelims with a lifetime best 56.14 finish, while Christie Schiel (2:11.05) crossed in second and Parsell (2:14.20) in eighth to advance to the 800 finals.

Kendra Larson fell one spot shy of the 800 finals by taking ninth, while women's junior Taylor Buschy and men's junior Christopher Lange each took 11th in the 400 prelims.

"We have to go into tomorrow with a feeling that we have people in the finals and have opportunities to score," Kennedy said. "We have to take advantage of our opportunities and make the most of them."

The Big Sky Conference Championships begin with the final day of action Saturday starting at 10 a.m. The meet is scheduled with the final event to take place at 3:50 p.m. at Holt Arena. The entire day of action can be streamed online at WatchBigSky.com with a results link available on the Montana State track and field schedule page at msubobcats.com.