Griz at Stanford, Bozeman this weekend
4/5/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Outdoor Track, Women's Track and Field
April 5, 2012
Montana outdoor performance list 
The Montana outdoor track and field teams, fresh off a successful start to their season last Saturday at the Al Manuel Invitational, will continue their early-season meets this week with athletes competing at Stanford, Calif., and Bozeman, Mont.
Seniors Katrina Drennen and Lynn Reynolds will compete in the 5,000 meters and steeplechase, respectively, at the Stanford Invitational Friday evening. The rest of Montana's athletes will compete at the three-day Montana State Open.
Freshman Tyler Spalding will take on his first career decathlon Thursday and Friday as part of the MSU Open multi-events. The rest of the meet will take place Saturday.
With Lindsey Hall redshirting the outdoor season, the Grizzlies will have no heptathletes in action this spring. Sophomore Austin Emry will compete in his first career decathlon next weekend at Sacramento, Calif.
Stanford Invitational: Reynolds will return to the site of his top career steeplechase race: Stanford's Cobb Track. At last spring's Payton Jordan Invitational, Reynolds broke nine minutes for the first time in his career, posting a time of 8:54.53.
He will race Friday at 6:35 p.m. (MT) in heat two of two.
Drennen, who will race at 9:16 p.m. (MT) in the elite of three heats, also had a career effort at last spring's Payton Jordan Invitational. Drennen ran a 4:15.34 in the 1,500 meters to take more than four seconds off her school record and post the third-fastest time in Big Sky Conference history.
The major difference is that Friday night she will be racing the 5,000 meters for the first time since the Big Sky outdoor championship last May. It will be Drennen's first time competing in the 5,000 meters at a high-caliber meet since she raced the event at the 2009 NCAA Midwest Regional at Norman, Okla.
"The races are different in length, but the preparation is still the same, and you need to have the same mental attitude," she said. "I'm excited. It's a great opportunity to be in (the elite heat)."
Drennen, who advanced to nationals last spring in the 1,500 meters, has a career best in the 5,000 meters of 16:33.13. She ran that time in early April last year at a Sacramento State meet.
In Friday's elite heat, she'll line up against 10 other collegians, plus 22 high-level unattached or sponsored post-collegiate athletes.
One of the athletes racing in Drennen's heat will be California's Deborah Maier. Maier ran a 15:29.24 at the Husky Classic in Seattle in early February. That was the fastest 5,000-meter time in the U.S. this year and the fifth-fastest collegiate mark of all time.
Drennen remains undaunted. "I don't know where I am in this event, so my goal is to stay in the moment and in the race. No matter how the race shakes out, as long as I'm racing in the moment I know my time will come."
Montana State Open: It's early April in Bozeman, and that means conditions that could be all over the weather spectrum. Weather.com is reporting a 100 percent chance of snow both Thursday and Friday, then a sunny day Saturday with a high of 43 degrees after an overnight low in the 20s.
Montana got off to a running start last weekend at the Al Manuel Invitational with 20 Big Sky Conference qualifications from 18 different athletes and 12 individual event victories. The meet was held under ideal conditions: calm, cool and sunny.
"Regardless of the weather we see Saturday, everyone should be on a high note because of the performances we had last Saturday," UM track and field program director Brian Schweyen said.
"When you start off as well as we did, you should be pretty excited about the next meet regardless of the weather. I don't see us going backwards from here."
The Montana State Open's field events begin at 11 a.m. Saturday with the women's pole vault and hammer and men's long jump and javelin. Running events start at 11:30 a.m. with a mixed 10,000 meters.
Things we've learned through one meet:
1. Tickets should be hot for what is shaping up to be the premier race of the Big Sky Conference outdoor championships in May at Bozeman: the women's 1,500 meters. In Katrina Drennen's absence, Weber State's Amber Henry and Sarah Callister have put a stranglehold on the distance events.
At the indoor championships Henry swept the 800 meters and mile and finished fourth in the 3,000 meters. Callister won the 3,000 and 5,000 meters and finished second to Henry in the mile to win Most Valuable Athlete honors.
The trio ranks 1-2-3 in the Big Sky through the early portion of the outdoor season, with Henry's 4:24.84 and Callister's 4:27.13 at San Diego State two weeks ago split by Drennen's altitude-adjusted 4:26.57 last Saturday.
Montana State's Heather Haug also broke 4:30 last Saturday at the Al Manuel.
The Big Sky Conference needs to spend whatever it takes to get eScala to perform "Palladio" live from the infield -- with the volume cranked to 10 -- in the moments leading up to the start of the 1,500. Just in case anyone needed any further motivation to run through a brick wall.
Bond's "Victory" seems like the appropriate post-race background offering. Big Sky office: Make this happen
2. Freshman Allie Parks appears to be the answer to "Who follows in Kara DeWalt's footsteps as Montana's next great steeplechaser?" Parks won her first career steeplechase race Saturday in an altitude-adjusted time of 11:12.08.
DeWalt, who advanced to nationals in the event last season as a senior, ran an altitude-adjusted 11:07.55 in her first collegiate steeplechase race.
3. Kourtney Danreuther, the defending outdoor champion in the 400-meter hurdles and indoor champion in the 400 meters, won her first hurdles race of the season Saturday in a raw time of 1:00.05. Expect the rest of her times this season to start with a five.
4. Montana's 4x400-meter relay team of Danreuther, Emily Eickholt, Melissa Jenkins and Brittany Schroeder leads the Big Sky Conference with its time of 3:45.05 last Saturday. The school record of 3:43.13 from 1987 is on life support.
5. Senior Courtney Kosovich is tied with two others atop the pole vault performance list at 12-1.5. If Eastern Washington's Keisa Monterola, who won the indoor title with a height of 14-2 and finished fifth at indoor nationals, is not eligible for the outdoor season, the event opens up for everybody else.
Kosovich has six times placed in the top four at Big Sky indoor and outdoor championships but is still seeking her first title.
6. Senior Nicole Ennen leads the Big Sky in the discus with her school-record throw of 155-1 Saturday. Ennen finished second at last spring's Big Sky outdoor championships and was the only non-senior in the top four.
Montana has not had a women's conference champion in the discus since Sherryl Dodge in 1985.
7. The men's event that might match the women's 1,500 meters? The 400-meter hurdles, and it should for a few years. The top seven on the current Big Sky performance list are all underclassmen, and less than half a second separates the top four.
Sophomore Drew Owens, runner-up at last May's outdoor championships, ranks fourth behind a pair of athletes from Northern Arizona and one from Idaho State.
8. Sophomore Kaleb Horlick is tied for second in the pole vault at 15-5. But it's early. Only twice in the last 25 years has the Big Sky winner not gone at least 16 feet at the outdoor championships.
9. Portland State's Sean Mackelvie leads the men's javelin with a throw of 201-11. Expect senior Richard Brumbaugh to take over the top spot Saturday. Brumbaugh did not record a distance Saturday after throwing three that landed outside the sector, but at least one of those throws went a good distance past 210 feet.
