MSU Cruises Through Bobcat Invitational to Begin Outdoor Season

Saturday, March 25

BOZEMAN

10 a.m.

Montana State University

Bobcat Invitational

Lindsay Benson

Photo by: Kelly Gorham

MSU Cruises Through Bobcat Invitational to Begin Outdoor Season

3/25/2017 6:03:00 PM | Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field

Results

The Bobcat women's team had a first-place finisher in each event it competed in and the men's team had just as much success with 11 first-place finishes to highlight Montana State' track and field's outdoor opener

By: Andrew Pedersen

BOZEMAN, Mont. – The Montana State men's and women's track teams had solid showings in the Bobcat Invitational to kick off the outdoor season Saturday, March 25, at the Bobcat Track and Field Complex. MSU's women's team had a first-place finisher in each event it had a competitor in and the men's squad had 11 take first in an event as the Bobcats wrapped up the non-scoring dual against Montana State Billings.

"I thought we performed well," Montana State head coach Dale Kennedy said. "(MSU Billings) had a couple sprint guys that ran really well and certainly competed well, but it was a great opener for us (overall). For our kids, it became more of an intrasquad meet in some aspects, but I thought there were a lot of really good marks. I know that there were kids (today) that performed better than they did a year ago in the first outdoor meet. That's really encouraging and exciting for us."

Senior Christie Schiel, juniors Kyle Douglass and Amanda Jaynes, and freshmen Lindsay Benson and Noah Martin all won multiple individual events for the Bobcats Saturday.

Schiel took first in the women's 800-meter run and the 1,500. Schiel's mark of 4:37.17 in the 1,500, converted to 4:31.39 with altitude, gives her the fastest mark in the Big Sky Conference this season and the 10th best in program history. She also had a time of 2:16.33 in the 800 which topped fellow Bobcats Kimberly Parsell, Kendra Larson and Madison Liechty. That mark is the fourth best in the Big Sky in the event this season.

Junior Alyssa Snyder took runner-up in the women's 1,500 with a personal-best time of 4:38.64, the third best on the conference performance chart, but had her most impressive outing in the 5,000. Snyder placed first in the 5,000 with an altitude-converted time of 16:59.15, the fastest in the Big Sky during the early outdoor campaign and eighth best on the MSU all-time top 10 list.

Jessica Chrisp, Elisabeth Krieger, Holly Andersen, Carlie Haeffner, Casey Teska, Truanne Roginske Jacqueline Verlanic and Carley VonHeeder all finished atop a respective event on the women's side.

Teska earned the third best vault in the Big Sky by reaching a mark of 12-00 (3.66m). Verlanic completed the hammer throw by reaching a distance of 179-04 (54.66m), good for third in the conference at this time. VonHeeder and Leslie Gappa went 1-2 in the javelin with marks that are the fourth and fifth, respectively, in the Big Sky.

MSU had several events with back-to-back finishes among the women's top performers.

Parsell, Liecthy, Kendra Larson and Sierra Tucker rounded out MSU's 1-6 finish in the 1,500. Rychelle DeNardo, Jennette Northey, Tucker and Morgan Jones helped seal the top five spots in the 5,000. Tiffani Finley and Aubrey Kessel completed top-three showings for the 'Cats in the pole vault, Megan Ralstin and Alex Hellenberg achieved the same feat in the long jump, Callen Crawford and Cailyn Schroeder did the same thing in the hammer throw and Tiffany Shearman helped round out MSU's top three in the javelin.

Douglass earned two first-place finishes behind top Big Sky performances on the men's side. He picked up the top spot in the discus this year in the conference with a throw of 171-11 (52.40m), then earned the second-best mark on the Big Sky chart with his shot put of 56-01.25 (17.11m).

Continuing the success for the men's throwers were Calvin Root and Alec Nehring. Root won the hammer throw (188-11) with the second-longest toss in the conference. Nehring was solid in multiple events as he finished runner-up in the shot put, discus and hammer throw.

Martin translated his indoor high jump success outdoors by taking first in the event with a leap of 06-06.75, the third best mark in the Big Sky at this time. He also took first in the long jump (20-10.75).

Junior Diego Leon led a 1-6 MSU finish in the 1,500 with his time of 3:59.93. Zach Kughn and Cameron Carroll were close on the trail, with all three making up the 4-6 marks on the Big Sky performance list.

Carroll finished first in the 8,000, Jadin Casey had the top time in the 400, Mason Storm and Chrstopher Lange took first in the 110 hurdles and 400 hurdles, respectively, while Graham Reid placed atop the pole vault standings with his Big Sky-leading vault of 15-01 (4.60m) to round out the Bobcats' event winners.

Other standout performances included MSU's 2-4 contingent of Ty Mogan, Leon and Adam Wollant in the 5,000, Bill Yeager's team-best third-place finish in the 100 and Ty Bermes' runner-up showing in the javelin (170-11) which put him at fifth in the Big Sky at this stage in the season.

The Bobcat Invitational served as MSU's first of two home meets during the 2017 outdoor season, exactly two months from the NCAA Division I Championship Preliminaries. The Bobcats return home for their final meet of the regular season on May 5 to host the Tom Gage Classic. Montana State looks ahead next to the Al Manual Northwest Dual from March 31-April 1 in Missoula.

"We have a double dual scored meet coming up over at Montana," Kennedy said. "The level of competition will really rise and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to rise to that occasion and step up to it."