Griz-Cat Dual going down Saturday in Bozeman

Montana Performance List | Big Sky Performance List | Griz-Cat Dual Records

The Montana track and field teams will travel to Bozeman this week for their annual dual against Montana State. The teams will square off Saturday at MSU's Track and Field Complex.

The Bobcats swept the duals in Missoula last season, winning 120-78 on the women's side to take a 17-16 lead in the all-time series and 109-88 on the men's to narrow Montana's advantage to 55-27.

It was the second straight dual win for the Montana State women, who broke two Griz-Cat Dual records last April at Dornblaser Field. Chantel Jaeger won the 100 meters in a time of 11.82, and Heather Demorest claimed the 5,000 meters in 17:18.99.

The Bobcat men have won four of the last five duals over the Grizzlies.

Montana won scored duals over Montana State earlier this month at the Al Manuel Northwest Dual at Dornblaser Field, 116-81 for the men, 105.5-93.5 for the women, but those victories came against shorthanded Bobcat squads.

"This meet will be much more competitive on both sides," said UM assistant coach Adam Bork. "I know our athletes want to beat the Bobcats, so it's always a fun meet. The competitive level always gets kicked up a couple of notches for this one."

The Grizzlies will compete at Dornblaser Field next week at the three-day Montana Open, with a decathlon and heptathlon scheduled for Thursday and Friday. The Tom Gage Classic will be held at the same facility on Friday, May 6.

Then it will be off to Greeley, Colo., for the four-day Big Sky Conference championships, a meet more important in the big picture than this week's dual at Bozeman.

"Saturday is an important meet. It's always nice to compete well against Montana State, but it's important to have that end-goal in mind too," said Bork. "If some of our athletes are banged up or need to work on something else, they may not be competing in their best events.

"But we're going to do our best and take the dual seriously, and hopefully win on both sides."

Montana State was picked ahead of Montana in both men's and women's preseason polls, but three weeks out from the conference championships, it's the Grizzlies holding 27 qualifying marks to the Bobcats' 20.

"Everyone has started off really well," said Bork. "A lot of the athletes we expected to be near the top are there, and their training has shown us that there is still more to come, so these next few meets are going to be exciting to see that progress.

"And a lot of the people who aren't our top athletes have been making some huge improvements as well, so I think we'll be seeing some lifetime bests out of those athletes."

Montana has five top-three marks on the Big Sky Conference performance list from both its women's and men's teams.

Leading the way for the women is junior Sammy Evans, who tops the league in both the long jump (19-4) and triple jump (42-0.75).

Her triple jump last Saturday at the Oregon Relays in Eugene was her first time going over 42 feet and has her ranked 14th in the NCAA West Region, 22nd nationally. It also moved her into 10th in Big Sky outdoor history.

That jump was too heavily wind-aided to make the Montana record book, but one of her other jumps at Eugene, a 41-7.5 at less than 2.0 meters of wind per second, will stand as the record until she lands a 42-footer without as much of a tailwind.

The previous record was 41-0.75, set by Renee Dunn in 2003. That gives Evans both the indoor and outdoor triple jump records.

Sophomore Hana Feilzer ranks second in the hammer with her school-record throw of 194-9 from the Al Manuel, freshman Kayla Holmes ranks third in discus at 152-6 from the season-opening Montana State Open, and senior Lindsey Dahl ranks third in the javelin at 155-10, a performance from Eugene.

Sophomore Matt Quist continues to lead the Big Sky in the high jump at 7-1 and is the only athlete to have gone 6-10 so far this spring. He is tied for 11th in the West Region, tied for 21st nationally.

Montana has the No. 2-ranked athlete in both hurdles races. Senior Jacob Leininger, he of recent YouTube fame, is No. 2 in the 110-meter hurdles with his career-best time of 14.43 from the Oregon Relays. Senior Dylan Reynolds is No. 2 in the 400-meter hurdles at 53.81.

Also ranking second is the Grizzlies' 4x100-meter relay team of Dionee Marrero, Sterling Reneau, Andrew Monaco and Alex Mustard, who ran a 41.47 at the Community Colleges of Spokane's WAR IX meet.

The other top-three athlete is senior Lee Hardt, one of four athletes tied behind Quist and Sacramento State freshman Daniel Onuoha (6-9.75) at 6-8.75 in the high jump.

Notables:

* Sophomore Jessica Bailey took her PR in the steeplechase down to 10:48.83 at the Oregon Relays and has made her way up to No. 6 in the Big Sky.

* Senior Lindsey Dahl has thrown PRs in the javelin the last two weeks, going 151-8 at Spokane Falls and 155-10.5 at Oregon.

* Junior Nicole Stroot, at 14.47, and sophomore Erika McLeod, at 14.77, both ran PRs in the 100-meter hurdles at Eugene. Stroot, who finished third at the Big Sky indoor championships in the 60-meter hurdles, ranks eighth on the league performance list.

* In five meets this spring, sophomore Jensen Lillquist has thrown farther than 200 feet in the javelin five times, twice landing beyond 210 feet. He broke 200 feet in just three of nine meets last spring as a freshman, a season that ended at regionals.

* Freshman Karsten Pease had a huge PR in the 800 meters last weekend at Hayward Field, running a 1:53.76. It was shy of the Big Sky standard of 1:53.30, but it moved him up to No. 10 in the Big Sky.

* Sophomore Nathan Wellington moved up to No. 7 in the Big Sky with his career-best steeplechase race at Oregon. He clocked a 9:24.88.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Jessica Bailey

Lindsey Dahl

Sammy Evans

Hana Feilzer

Lee Hardt

Kayla Holmes

Jacob Leininger

Jensen Lillquist

Dionee Marrero

Erika McLeod

Andrew Monaco

Alex Mustard

Karsten Pease

Matt Quist

Sterling Reneau

Dylan Reynolds

Nicole Stroot

Nathan Wellington

University of Montana Athletics