Multi-events competition canceled
4/14/2010 12:00:00 AM | Men's Indoor Track, Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
The multi-events portion of this week???s Montana Open has been canceled. The men???s decathlon and women???s heptathlon were scheduled to be competed Thursday and Friday. Saturday???s Montana Open will still be held as scheduled.
Montana???s multi-event athletes are coming off decathlons and heptathlons last weekend at Idaho State and UCLA, and no other schools competing Saturday at the open meet entered athletes in the multi-events.
Freshman Seth Wright, senior Michael Blanchard and junior Evan Stokken all qualified in the decathlon last Thursday and Friday.
Wright scored 6,184 points at the UCLA Invitational in his collegiate multi-events debut. Blanchard scored 6,165 points and Stokken 6,149 at ISU???s combined events. All three hit the Big Sky Conference qualifying standard of 5,500 points.
???Doing the decathlon back-to-back weeks is tough,??? UM multi-events coach Adam Bork said. ???It???s just too draining and too hard on the body.
???I know the guys are still pretty sore, so I don???t think they would have enough energy to be able to come back and do any better than they did last week.
???I think it???s best they get a few days of extra rest and just do some open events Saturday.???
Senior Megan Betz is the only Montana athlete qualified in the heptathlon after scoring 4,403 points at the UCLA Invitational last week.
Senior Amber Aikins and freshman Lindsey Hall also competed at UCLA but were unable to put up marks in all the events due to minor injuries.
In Aikins??? most recent season of eligibility, she placed third in the pentathlon at the 2009 Big Sky indoor championships.
Hall was fourth in the pentathlon at the 2010 indoor championships and scored points in three other events.
Neither will have additional opportunities this season to automatically qualify for the heptathlon. Both are expected to get the women???s team???s two wildcard entries in order to compete in the heptathlon at the Big Sky outdoor championships, which will be held May 12-15 at Ogden, Utah.
???Amber and Lindsey are both a little dinged up right now, so it will be good for them to have a couple more days of rest and just do a few events Saturday,??? Bork added. ???They are entered in three or four events, but I don???t know if they will even do that many.???
Saturday???s open meet starts at 10 a.m. with the women???s hammer throw. Running events begin at 12:30 p.m. with the women???s steeplechase.
