Montana
Big Sky Conference Championships
Danreuther brilliant in Bozeman
5/13/2012 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Outdoor Track, Women's Track and Field
May 13, 2012
Women's results 
| Men's results | Photo gallery 
Montana finished sixth and seventh Saturday in the team standings at the Big Sky Conference outdoor track and field championships at Bozeman, Mont., but sophomore Kourtney Danreuther made sure it was still a memorable day.
Danreuther swept the 200 and 400 meters, ran a leg of the Grizzlies' winning 4x400-meter relay and was part of two school and Big Sky Conference championships records.
Quite a performance for someone who a few weeks ago figured she would be defending her 400-meter hurdles title in Bozeman. Instead Montana track and field coach Brian Schweyen passed on entering Danreuther in the hurdles and put her in the 200 and 400 meters to maximize her scoring potential.
Danreuther, who also ran a leg of Montana's fourth-place 4x100-meter relay, affirmed Schweyen's prescient hunch by having a hand in 35 of the 59 points the Montana women scored Saturday.
After warming up with her leg of the 4x100-meter relay, Danreuther came back an hour later and blew up the field in the 400 meters. She won so handily -- by over five meters -- that the only suspense for the crowd came when it turned its attention to the scoreboard to get a glimpse of Danreuther's time.
Her 53.21, which created one of the facility's loudest roars of the day, was a record-breaking trifecta. The time broke the nine-year-old MSU stadium record of 54.07, eclipsed Loni Perkins' school record of 53.48 and broke the Big Sky championships record of 53.24, which Northern Arizona's Samantha George set in 1998.
If Danreuther's 400 meters victory was electric, her victory in the 200 meters 90 minutes later was coldly efficient. She grabbed the lead early and never allowed the seven other athletes to feel part of the race. Her time was a career-best 24.27, more than two-tenths better than the runner-up.
Even with two individual titles, Danreuther was hardly done for the day.
After eyeing the Montana 4x400-meter relay record all season, Danreuther and her teammates knocked off the 25-year-old mark in the championships' final running event. And the team of Danreuther, senior Melissa Jenkins and juniors Emily Eickholt and Brittany Schroeder didn't just nip the record, they destroyed it.
Danreuther -- flying like she was in spikes to everyone else's hiking boots -- ran Montana from fourth to first on the second leg, and Eickholt and Jenkins held the lead until Jenkins crossed the line in 3:40.98. That smashed the 1987 school record of 3:43.13, set a new stadium record and broke the Big Sky championships record of 3:41.06 that Boise State ran in 1988.
And all because Danreuther ran a 59.14 400-meter hurdles last weekend at the Tom Gage Classic, a time that assured her of a spot to regionals and allowed for some imagination in her championships' entries.
"I was excited about the opportunity (to run the 200 and 400 meters) because the hurdles can be so unpredictable," Danreuther said. "I thought the relay team was going to do something amazing, but I did not have that much confidence in myself for the other races.
"I did a lot of praying and tried to stay relaxed. Otherwise I think I would have gotten overwhelmed with everything."
Instead Danreuther did the whelming. It was only a Big Sky Conference administrative bylaw -- which will be revisited this summer at Schweyen's insistence -- that kept Danreuther from earning some sort of meet honors.
"I think Kourtney is just scratching the surface of what she can do," Schweyen said. "When you look at what she has done the last two years to get to this point, it's pretty clear she is only going to get better and better."
Danreuther's point total Saturday -- in the 200 and 400 meters alone -- would have placed her ahead of Northern Colorado in the overall team standings. Her teammates came through with enough points that the Grizzlies finished in sixth with 80 points.
Senior Katrina Drennen, who was not 100 percent because of an ill-timed fever, gutted out nine points Saturday. She finished sixth in the 1,500 meters, then came back later in the afternoon and finished second in the 5,000.
Her runner-up in the 5,000 meters gave Drennen, who will compete in the 5k in two weeks at the NCAA West Regional at Austin, Texas, a sixth All-Big Sky Conference finish for her outdoor career.
Junior Anika Green, in addition to racing with Danreuther on the 4x100-meter relay, also earned her first career All-Big Sky finish when she came in third in the 110-meter hurdles.
Accounting for Montana's other seven points Saturday were sophomore Kellee Glaus, who was seventh in the triple jump, freshman Autumn Taniguchi, seventh in the 400-meter hurdles, freshman Allie Parks, seventh in the 5,000 meters and Jenkins, eighth in the 400 meters.
For Parks it was an encouraging seven-point start to her career. She also finished fourth in the steeplechase Friday.
The Montana men's team scored 28 points Saturday to match their total entering the day. Their 56 points for the championships left them in seventh place.
The team's highlight Saturday came in the 400-meter hurdles, where sophomore Drew Owens finished second in a career-best time of 52.16.
Owens' time eclipsed his previous best of 52.24, a time he ran a year ago to finish second at the 2011 Big Sky championships.
"Everybody in the conference has this meet marked down on their calendar, and everybody is bringing their A game. I think that brings out a lot of people's best performances," Owens said about his trend of peaking the second weekend of May.
"Plus Brian (Schweyen) does a really good job of getting everybody focused for this meet."
Freshman Andrew Monaco, a walk-on from Billings who Schweyen calls "a diamond in the rough," scored three times Saturday.
After making it out of the 400-meter preliminaries Friday, Monaco finished seventh in Saturday's final. He also ran a leg of Montana's sixth-place 4x400-meter relay and eighth-place 4x100-meter relay.
Junior Nathan Klug finished fifth in the hammer for the second straight year, throwing just under his career best at 181-6, and freshman Tyler Spalding had a season-best effort in the triple jump, going 45-3.75 to also finish fifth.
Senior Max Hardt took sixth in the 800 meters for three points, and senior Christian Segota finished sixth in the triple jump.
Sacramento State won its fifth straight women's team title, scoring 173 points, its second-highest point total during the Hornets' streak.
Sac State was led by the championships' women's MVP Ify Agwuenu, who won the shot put and finished second in the discus and fourth in the hammer.
Montana State was second with 121.5 points, Northern Arizona was third with 107.
Amber Henry of fourth-place Weber State was named women's Outstanding Performer. She swept the steeplechase Friday and 1,500 meters Saturday.
Northern Arizona, which pulled away from Montana State over the day's final four events, won its 17th men's title with 221 points. The Bobcats finished second with 164, Weber State third with 100.
MSU's Jeff Mohl was named the men's Outstanding Performer, and NAU's Jordan Chipangama was named MVP.
Mohl scored 24 individual points in the decathlon, long jump, pole vault and javelin and was a member of the Bobcats' first-place 4x100-meter relay and fourth-place 4x400-meter relay.
Chipangama scored 26 of the Lumberjacks' points Saturday in a feat of distance-running strength. He won the 1,500 meters and finished second in both the 800 and 5,000 meters, all in less than three hours' time.
In the end the championships -- which resulted in four new school records but bottom-half finishes for both Montana teams -- left Schweyen with mixed feelings. Shortly after the meet he was clearly ecstatic with the direction some of his athletes are taking the program, but he also expressed his frustration that not everybody is following that lead..
"We had a handful of kids that had an absolutely fantastic meet," he said. "There were some great performances, some school records went down, and we saw some lifetime bests.
"Then there were a lot of performances that were disappointing. A lot of our performances were not where we'd like to see them, and I take 100 percent responsibility for that lack of competitiveness and focus.
"We've got to do a better job of getting these kids ready to compete, because I think we have the talent to be really good."
Women's team standings
1. Sacramento State ... 173
2. Montana State ... 121.5
3. Northern Arizona ... 107
4. Weber State ... 97
5. Idaho State ... 85.5
6. Montana ... 80
7. Portland State ... 71
8. Eastern Washington ... 62
9. Northern Colorado ... 18
Montana's point scorers
10, Kourtney Danreuther, 200 meters, first
10, Kourtney Danreuther, 400 meters, first
10, Nicole Ennen, discus, first
10, 4x400-meter relay (Danreuther, Eickholt, Jenkins, Schroeder), first
8, Katrina Drennen, 5,000 meters, second
6, Anika Green, 100-meter hurdles, third
5, Allie Parks, steeplechase, fourth
5, 4x100-meter relay (Braby, Danreuther, Green, Worst), fourth
4, Kiandra Rajala, hammer, fifth
3, Katrina Drennen, 1,500 meters, sixth
2, Allie Parks, 5,000 meters, seventh
2, Autumn Taniguchi, 400-meter hurdles, seventh
2, Jessica Leslie, long jump, seventh
2, Kellee Glaus, triple jump, seventh
1, Melissa Jenkins, 400 meters, eighth
Men's team standings
1. Northern Arizona ... 221
2. Montana State ... 164
3. Weber State ... 100
4. Sacramento State ... 94
5. Idaho State ... 93.5
6. Eastern Washington ... 70
7. Montana ... 56
8. Portland State ... 15
9. Northern Colorado ... 4.5
Montana's point scorers
8, Drew Owens, 400-meter hurdles, second
6, Richard Brumbaugh, javelin, third
6, Austin Emry, decathlon, third
4, Lynn Reynolds, steeplechase, fifth
4, Lee Hardt, high jump, fifth
4, Tyler Spalding, triple jump, fifth
4, Nathan Klug, hammer, fifth
4, Justin Meyer, javelin, fifth
3, Max Hardy, 800 meters, sixth
3, 4x400-meter relay (Monaco, Norris, Owens, Quartarone), sixth
3, Austin Emry, long jump, sixth
3, Christian Segota, triple jump, sixth
2, Andrew Monaco, 400 meters, seventh
1, 4x100-meter relay (Monaco, Owens, Quartarone, Segota), eighth
1, Brandon Forson, shot put, eighth
Players Mentioned
