Montana
Eastern Washington
Griz conclude season opener at Candy Cane
12/8/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Indoor Track, Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
Dec. 8, 2013
The Montana track and field teams opened their indoor season Friday and Saturday with a number of impressive performances at Eastern Washington's Candy Cane Invitational. The Grizzlies had a dozen Big Sky Conference-qualifying marks from 11 different athletes.
But because the program aspires to be bigger than just success at the conference level, let us first focus on nationals.
Montana has two redshirt senior multi-event athletes who have done enough at the Big Sky level and have both experienced the NCAA championships that they might as well be competing their final indoor season in matching uniforms that read Albuquerque or Bust.
Austin Emry made nationals last winter in the heptathlon behind the school-record 5,623 points he scored at last December's Candy Cane Invitational.
With 5,529 points on the weekend, he came up 94 points shy of his PR and will likely still have to put together a better seven-event performance in January or February to make it to New Mexico, site of this year's indoor nationals, but the numbers are more than there.
On Saturday he went 7.56 in the 55-meter hurdles, 14-9 in the pole vault and 2:52.52 in the 1,000 meters to beat his only competitor in the multi-events by exactly 800 points.
The event that cost Emry was the long jump, Friday's second event. A long jumper who has pushed 25 feet, Emry narrowly scratched his first two attempts and had to take a safer approach on his third and final try, and that resulted in a mark of 21-8.75.
"He was over 23 feet on his first two jumps but just over the board. On his third jump he took off a foot and a half behind the board, so he probably lost 100 points in that event alone," UM track and field coach Brian Schweyen said. "But Austin was still solid."
Lindsey Hall, who's been to outdoor nationals but is still seeking her first trip to the NCAA indoor championships, did not compete in the pentathlon, something she's won twice at the Big Sky Conference championships, but her two-event performance augur a big winter ahead.
She won the high jump at a height of 5-7 and had a breakthrough PR in the shot put. After years of landing in the mid-30s -- her PR had maxed out at 36-9.5 -- Hall went 40-8.25 on Saturday, which leads to one of two questions. Where did that come from? Or, where has that been?
"(Multi-events coach Adam Bork) and I have known forever that Lindsey can throw 40 feet," said Schweyen. "In the high jump she was over 5-9.25 by a couple of inches and knocked the bar off with her heels.
"That's a big day for her and a big confidence boost."
Montana's men had a big day Saturday in the jumps, highlighted by redshirt senior Keith Webber in the pole vault. Webber had a nine-inch PR at 16-10.75, and that puts him on the cusp of 17 feet, the vertical realm where only Big Sky Conference champions reside.
Webber led a 1-2-3 finish in the event for the Grizzlies. Next came senior Kaleb Horlick, who cleared just under his PR at 15-11, and freshman Peter Sirmon, whose collegiate debut of 15-5 met the Big Sky Conference qualifying standard.
The other jumps standout was junior Lee Hardt, twice an All-Big Sky Conference high jumper last year, with a third-place showing at the indoor championships and a tie for second outdoors.
Saturday he went 6-11. Like Webber in the pole vault, Hardt will need to be above seven feet -- a height he reached twice during the 2013 outdoor season on his way to NCAA regionals -- to become a Big Sky champion.
Emry and junior Jacob Leininger both had Big Sky-qualifying times in the 55-meter hurdles. Emry ran a 7.56 in the heptathlon, Leininger a career-best 7.72 in the preliminaries of the open hurdles.
Freshman Nick Jackson didn't reach the Big Sky standard of 51-10 in the shot put, but he impressed Schweyen with his effort of 50-0.75.
"That was probably the biggest surprise of the meet, and it was great to see," he said. "You never know how these kids are going to come out their first meet."
While Jackson was a surprise, none of the five Big Sky qualifiers on the women's side were. Hall's 5-7 in the high jump qualified, as did senior Shayle Dezellem's winning score of 3,313 in Friday's pentathlon.
Dezellem placed eighth in the multi-events at the 2013 Big Sky indoor championships, then redshirted the outdoor season. This week she will wrap up challenging academic semester with finals.
"Shayle had a better score (of 3,353) last year at this meet, but she's been loaded down with school this semester, so she hasn't done as much technique work as she did last year," Schweyen said.
"And it can be tough to come back after redshirting. But she wasn't far off where she was last year, and she's both stronger and smarter."
One of Montana's strongest events last year was the triple jump, behind Kellee Glaus, now a senior, and Sammy Evans, now a sophomore.
Glaus was the Big Sky indoor champion and outdoor runner-up and was a first-time NCAA regionals qualifier. She won the event at 12 of 15 indoor and outdoor meets in 2013. Evans joined the program as an unknown and proceeded to finish fifth at the Big Sky indoor championships and fourth outdoors.
On Saturday the duo let it be known that they are back for more. Glaus won with a jump of 39-3. Evans was second at 38-3.5.
Montana's fifth Big Sky qualifier was sophomore Samantha Hodgson, who opened her indoor season with a distance of 46-5.5 to win the shot put.
"There were a lot of really nice performances as we move forward," Schweyen said.
Montana won't compete again until 2014. The Grizzlies' multi-event athletes will travel to Montana State Jan. 6-7. UM's full team will compete for the first time Jan. 17 at MSU.
