Griz spread far and wide this week
4/18/2013 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Outdoor Track, Women's Track and Field
April 18, 2013
Montana Performance List
Big Sky Performance List
The Montana track and field teams will compete at three different meets over the course of three days this week as the Grizzlies enter the back half of their pre-Big Sky Conference championships schedule.
Montana will have athletes competing at the Mt. SAC Relays at Walnut, Calif., Thursday, Friday and Saturday, at the Beach Invitational at Norwalk, Calif., on Saturday and at the Cougar Invitational at Pullman, Wash., on Saturday.
The Mt. SAC Relays, now in its 55th year, is one of the nation's largest track and field events of the year. The Beach Invitational is hosted by Long Beach State at the facilities of Cerritos College.
The Mt. SAC Relays: Montana has eight athletes traveling to California, five of whom will be competing at Mt. SAC.
Sophomores Keli Dennehy and Allie Parks will be the first Grizzlies to compete when they run together in one of the women's steeplechase races Thursday afternoon. Dennehy ranks fourth in the Big Sky Conference with her altitude-adjusted time of 10:45.09 from the Al Manuel Invitational, Parks ranks 10th (11:06.88).
Racing in the same heat will be Kara DeWalt, Montana's 2011 Big Sky Conference steeplechase champion and school record holder (10:11.44). She is now racing for the Bay Area Track Club.
Juniors Kourtney Danreuther, Austin Emry and Lindsey Hall will all be competing Friday.
Danreuther, ranked second in the event in the Big Sky (1:00.50), will race the 400-meter hurdles. Hall, who is ranked first in the Big Sky in the javelin (160-4) and second in the 100-meter hurdles (14.04), will compete in both events, and Emry will tackle the 110-meter hurdles, high jump and long jump, all within a small window of time in the afternoon.
Danreuther, the defending Big Sky outdoor champion in the quarter mile, will race the 400 meters Saturday in a heat titled "Olympic Development Elite." It will be Danreuther's first 400-meter race of the spring.
What "Olympic Development Elite" means in terms of personnel: To Danreuther's far left will be Colorado's Eileen Gehring and Texas Tech's Candace Jackson and Christen Rivers, all of whom rank in the top 34 in the NCAA West Region. To Danreuther's immediate left, in lane 5, will be Giulia Arcioni, who represented Italy in the 400 meters at the Beijing Olympics.
To Danreuther's right will be USC's Ashley Liverpool, a second-team All-American last year while competing at Iowa and holder of a 52.47 PR, and USC's Akawkaw Ndipagbor, an All-America relay runner for the Trojans.
The Beach Invitational: Because of an administrative error, Hall won't be able to show off her jumping chops at Mt. SAC, so she'll do so Saturday at the Beach Invitational, the spillover meet for the best of the rest who are not competing in Walnut for whatever reason.
Hall, the reigning Big Sky Conference field athlete of the week, will compete in both the high jump and long jump, events in which she is ranked tied for second (5-7) and fourth (18-11.25) in the Big Sky.
Also jumping at the Beach Invitational will be juniors Gwenn Abbott and Kellee Glaus and sophomore Lee Hardt.
Glaus, the Big Sky indoor champion in the event, will compete in the triple jump. Abbott will contest the high jump, Hardt the high jump and triple jump.
Glaus is ranked first in the Big Sky in the triple jump with her career-best effort of 41-4.5 at the UNLV Invitational last weekend. Abbott is tied for second in the high jump with Hall at 5-7, and Hardt is tied for first in the high jump (7-0.5) with Emry and ranked fifth in the triple jump (46-0.5).
The Cougar Invitational: The bulk of Montana's athletes will be in Pullman for Saturday's 13th annual Cougar Invitational. The meet will be held at WSU's Mooberry Track Complex, with field events starting at 10:30 a.m. (MT) and track events at 1 p.m. (MT).
GoGriz.com will have the day's recap following the conclusion of Montana's efforts Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Upcoming: Montana will host the Griz-Cat Dual on Saturday, April 27, at Dornblaser Field, then travel to Bozeman for the Tom Gage Classic on Friday, May 3. The Big Sky Conference outdoor championships will be held the following week. Portland State will host the four-day meet at Pacific University's facilities in Forest Grove, Ore.
