Griz to face Eagles, Vandals at Pelluer Invitational Saturday
4/9/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Outdoor Track, Women's Track and Field
Montana Performance List 
 || Big Sky Performance List
The Montana track and field teams will compete Saturday at the 44th annual Pelluer Invitational at Cheney, Wash. The meet will include athletes from Montana, Eastern Washington and Idaho.
Field events begin at 11 a.m. (MT), running events at 2 p.m. (MT).
Beyond the Pelluer Invitational being the next meet on the schedule and a chance for dual-scoring opportunities against the Eagles and Vandals, Montana will get a chance to compete at Roos Field, site of next month's Big Sky Conference championships.
"Saturday will be very important in that regard," said UM coach Brian Schweyen. "It will be nice to get everyone on that track and in that facility so they can see what it's like and how it works."
The multi-events portion of the Big Sky championships will be held at Cheney May 13-14, the open events May 15-16.
Notes:
* There has been a major schedule change for Montana for next week. Instead of going to Southern California for the California Invitational, Mt. SAC Relays and Beach Invitational, the Grizzlies will travel to Eugene, Ore., for the Oregon Relays at Hayward Field.
The women's team's multi-event athletes will compete in the heptathlon Thursday and Friday. The rest of the meet will take place Friday and Saturday.
Montana will then be home for two straight meets -- the Griz-Cat Dual on April 25 and the Montana Open May 1-2. The team's final pre-championships meet will be the Tom Gage Classic at Bozeman May 8.
* Montana's top event this season, at least in terms of Big Sky Conference qualifiers, has been the javelin. Of the 12 athletes from the men's and women's teams holding conference qualifications, six throw the javelin.
On the men's side, freshman Luke Hilmes (200-5) and sophomore Nate Deming (189-11), a jumper who had never thrown the javelin prior to college, both reached the qualifying standard of 187-0.25 last Saturday at the Montana State Open at Bozeman.
Freshman Jensen Lillquist (203-6), who was already qualified, broke 200 feet for the first time Saturday. Junior Henry Lilly (188-1) earned his qualifier at the season-opening Al Manuel Invitational in Missoula.
Montana has four of the 10 men's Big Sky athletes automatically qualified in the event.
On the women's side, junior Stephanie Wells took over the top spot in the Big Sky Conference with her throw of 153-8 on Saturday at Bozeman. Senior Nycole Devers, throwing in competition for the first time in nearly two years, qualified with a throw of 140-7.
They are two of the five women's Big Sky athletes who have reached the qualifying standard of 137-9.5.
Wells opened the outdoor season with a throw of 143-9 at the Al Manuel, then went 153-8 on Saturday. She ranks 20th in the region.
"It's a very exciting start for her," said Schweyen. "To start out with a really solid opener at our home meet, then go to Bozeman and throw as well as she did is a great way to start the season."
Wells' start continues the strong finish she had to her 2014 season, when she went 150-5 at the Big Sky championships to finish fifth and a career-best 155-2 at the NCAA West Regional. Her 13th-place finish at regionals left her one spot from advancing to nationals.
"I think she came out of that meet disappointed because she was so close but also excited," said Schweyen. "It really gave her a lot of confidence. She wants to be good, and now she knows what it's going to take.
"It's not something that is just going to happen. She's going into our meets ready to compete at a really high level, and it shows."
* The UM men's team has just a pair of Big Sky qualifiers outside of the javelin. Senior Drew Owens, at 52.98, ranks third in the 400-meter hurdles, sophomore Nick Jackson, at 52-10.25, ranks fifth in the shot put.
Owens is the defending Big Sky Conference champion in the 400-meter hurdles. Jackson placed sixth in the shot put at February's indoor championships.
* Junior Samantha Hodgson is Montana's only two-event qualifier. She ranks fourth in the Big Sky in both the shot put (46-8.25) and discus (155-4). She placed third in the shot put at last spring's outdoor championships, fourth in the discus. She is also the UM record-holder in both events.
* Senior Caitlin Caraway is the Montana record-holder in the hammer (194-2) and advanced to regionals last spring in the event, but she has yet to score points for the Grizzlies at the Big Sky championships in any indoor or outdoor throwing event.
That should change this spring. Caraway, with a season-best mark of 187-9, ranks second in the hammer behind Northern Arizona sophomore Brooke Andersen, who has gone 202-2.
* Senior Keli Dennehy and junior Nicole Anskaitis round out Montana's Big Sky qualifiers. Dennehy qualified in the steeplechase with an adjusted time of 10:56.37 at the Al Manuel. She ranks seventh in the Big Sky.
Anskaitis, who also qualified at the Al Manuel, ranks eighth in the Big Sky with her adjusted time of 14.39 in the 100-meter hurdles.
* Junior Cody Curtis (1:54.92) and senior David Norris (1:54.96) both broke 1:55 in the 800 meters on Saturday at Bozeman, but neither ranks in the top 20 in the Big Sky in what is a loaded event. Ten athletes, half of whom are underclassmen, already have gone faster than 1:53.
* She is not automatically qualified, but redshirt freshman McKenzie Weber ranks ninth in the Big Sky in the long jump with her mark of 18-3 last Saturday at the MSU Open.
Players Mentioned
