Griz open indoor season this weekend
12/2/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Indoor Track, Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
The University of Montana track and field teams will get a pre-New Year???s start to their 2010 indoor season Friday and Saturday at Eastern Washington???s second annual Candy Cane Invitational at EWU???s Jim Thorpe Fieldhouse in Cheney, Wash.
This year???s Candy Cane Invitational will include a women???s pentathlon and men???s heptathlon. The one-day pentathlon will take place Friday, beginning at 9:30 a.m. (PT). The two-day heptathlon will start Friday at 10:30 a.m. (PT) and conclude Saturday morning starting at 8 a.m. (MT).
The track and field events portion of the meet will all take place on Saturday. The field events start at 11 a.m. (PT), the track events at 1 p.m. (PT).
The track events will include only the 55 meters and 55-meter hurdles. The field events include the shot put, weight throw, pole vault, long jump, triple jump and high jump.
All marks at the meet count toward potential qualifying standards for the Big Sky Conference championships, which will be held Friday and Saturday, Feb. 26-27, in Bozeman, Mont.
???This isn???t a meet where we???re worried about having a bunch of great performances,??? second-year UM program director Brian Schweyen said. ???This meet is more of a reward for our athletes who have been going since the middle of September.
???This gives them a chance to experience some competition before Christmas and see where they are in their training. And I think they come back a little bit more excited after Christmas break.???
Montana will be represented in the pentathlon by senior Megan Betz, sophomore Melissa Mauro and freshmen Kourtney Danreuther and Lindsey Hall. The women compete in the 55-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and 800 meters.
Betz has competed at the Big Sky indoor championships in the pentathlon her first three indoor seasons, finishing in eighth place as both a sophomore and junior.
Mauro was ninth at last winter???s indoor championships.
Senior Michael Blanchard and juniors Chris Hicks and Evan Stokken will represent the Grizzlies in the heptathlon. The men will compete in the 55 meters, long jump, shot put and high jump Friday and the 55-meter hurdles, pole vault and 1,000 meters Saturday morning.
Blanchard is in his second season competing in the multi-events. Stokken will be competing in his first heptathlon.
The pair had breakthrough performances last May at the Big Sky outdoor championships in Missoula, with Stokken finishing seventh in the decathlon and Blanchard eighth.
Hicks is looking to regain the form that had him placing sixth in the heptathlon at the 2008 Big Sky indoor championships and second in the decathlon at the 2008 outdoor championships.
Hicks redshirted the 2009 indoor season, then had a DNF at last May???s decathlon on his home track.
???I???m excited how everyone???s fall went,??? UM multi-events coach Adam Bork said. ???I think they all trained really hard, so I know they???re very excited to get up to Cheney and compete.
???We???re getting some really good young talent into the program, and I think those younger athletes are pushing our older people. They???ve been working harder because of that younger threat.???
Danreuther and Hall are two of the headliners of Montana???s current freshman class.
Danreuther was a 14-time Class C state champion in the sprints, middle distances, hurdles and jumps at Big Sandy High. Hall was the 2009 Class AA state champion in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles, the long jump and the triple jump. She also had a runner-up finish in the high jump.
???It will be a new experience for both of them,??? Bork said. ???Kourtney has never done the high jump, which is a pretty important event (in the five-event pentathlon), and neither of them has done the shot put.
???I???m not expecting huge scores, but from what I???ve seen I expect them to do well. Really this is about getting some experience under their belts, seeing some other Division I competition and getting the jitters out of the way.
???This will help me evaluate what we need to focus on in the month and a half before the Montana State pentathlon.???
Montana???s multi-event athletes will compete at Montana State Jan. 11-12. The full team will compete for the first time at Washington State Jan. 22-23.
