The Battle of Bozeman set for Monday and Tuesday
1/6/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Indoor Track, Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
Jan. 6, 2013
Two of the nation's top multi-event athletes, Montana's Austin Emry and Montana State's Jeff Mohl, will renew their rivalry this week when they compete in the Montana State Combined Events Invitational at Bozeman.
The men's heptathlon will be held Monday and Tuesday. The one-day women's pentathlon will be competed Monday.
Emry and Mohl are no strangers to one another. Their rivalry took root last May at the Big Sky Conference outdoor championships at Bozeman when the upstart Emry pushed the veteran Mohl, the eventual champion, in the decathlon. Emry, second to Mohl after day one, eventually settled for third.
Eight months later Mohl still has the better career resume. He finished second in the heptathlon at last winter's Big Sky indoor championships (while Emry was redshirting), he won the outdoor decathlon and went on to finish 17th in the decathlon at nationals.
Emry hasn't won anything yet, but he sent notice that he is going to be a factor on more than just the regional scene when he scored 5,623 points to win the heptathlon at Eastern Washington's Candy Cane Invitational in early December. That score was 102 points better than Mohl's personal best.
Despite competing solo in Cheney, Emry set personal bests in five of the heptathlon's seven events. His score broke the Montana heptathlon record by 145 points, surpassed his own previous best by nearly 500 points and came within 108 points of the Big Sky Conference record.
While there has been only a handful of multi-event competitions held around the country to date this indoor season, Emry currently ranks second nationally behind only Tom Bechert of Manhattan, who has posted a score of 5,819 points.
Montana multi-events coach Adam Bork thinks simply having anyone to compete against, much less an athlete like Mohl, should be worth a good chunk of points to Emry.
"I think it will help a bunch," Bork said. "Trying to get adrenaline to compete by yourself is hard, and Austin did that as well as he could have at Eastern Washington.
"Even if you're gaining a tenth of a second here and a few inches there, it all adds up. Having someone to compete with should be worth 50 to 100 points."
And on top of that, Emry has continued to improve over the last month, now that his fall conditioning has recently turned into more technique work.
"Technique-wise Austin has improved in a number of areas since Eastern," Bork added. "His starts are looking better, and I think his pole vault has improved.
"Hopefully he can repeat most of his performances (from Eastern), and then there are at least three events where I think he should improve."
The number to watch, not just this meet but Montana's upcoming multi-event competitions as well, will be 5,700. That's the number Bork has in mind that will put Emry in a comfortable and safe spot on the national performance list for one of the spots to nationals in March.
Like they were at Eastern Washington, the Grizzlies will be represented by junior Shayle Dezellem and freshman Lindsey Dahl in Monday's pentathlon.
Dezellem, a transfer from the Community Colleges of Spokane, and Dahl, who are both in their first year in the program, went one-two at Cheney. Dezellem's score of 3,353 points met the Big Sky qualifying standard of 3,300. Dahl finished with a score of 3,144.
Like Emry, Dezellem and Dahl will have a big upgrade in talent to compete against. Montana's Lindsey Hall, last year's Big Sky pentathlon champion, will be competing unattached while she redshirts the 2013 indoor season.
Montana State will counter with Carley McCutchen and Sarah McGree, who finished second and third in the heptathlon at last spring's outdoor championships.
Dezellem and Dahl will have the advantage of a previous meet that the other athletes are without, but they still need to overcome the Christmas break.
"It's a short break, but they can still come back a little bit rusty," Bork said. "Before the break we were working every day, trying to hit every event a couple of times per week. When you don't have that consistency, you can lose a little bit.
"I was pretty happy with their first meet, so now if they can get back into the same rhythm and match what they did before, then we can progress from there."
This will be the first of multiple trips to Bozeman this indoor season to compete at MSU's Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. Montana's full team will compete for the first time at MSU on Jan. 18, then return for two more meets prior to the Big Sky indoor championships, which will also be held in Bozeman Feb. 21-23.
Players Mentioned
