Trophy hunters: Griz invading Pocatello

Thursday, February 23

Pocatello, Idaho

Montana

Big Sky Conference Championships

2/21/2017 6:48:00 PM | Men's Track and Field, Women's Track and Field

By: Montana Sports Information

Montana Performance List || Championship Entries || Schedule of Events

The Big Sky Conference indoor track and field championships will take place this week at Idaho State's Holt Arena in Pocatello. The meet opens on Thursday and continues through Saturday.

And if things go according to plan, the Montana women's team will need to save a bus seat on the return trip for something big, something shiny and something that's been years in the making: a championship trophy.

"This team has the mindset that we're taking home a trophy," says the team's spiritual leader, fifth-year senior Sammy Evans, a four-time Big Sky champion in the jumps. "A conference title is very much in our line of sight."

And it should be. If the meet's results were based off of performances to this point of the season, nobody would score more than the Grizzlies this week.

But that doesn't factor in the human element of bringing it when a person's best is needed, or the championship atmosphere that can turn athletes into shells of themselves when the lights come on and the pressure ratchets up tenfold compared to what it is at a meet in January.

"The last indoor championships I did (at Northern Arizona in 2015), our team was so young," says Evans. "We looked like a hot mess out there. People weren't ready for it and were intimidated by it. A championship meet needs a different mindset."

There are also two teams chasing Montana, namely Northern Arizona and Sacramento State, who may not have the pre-championships points on paper that Montana has, but have the trophies. Those two teams have won eight of the last nine indoor titles, and that counts for a lot.

Montana has been close. The Grizzlies have had three third-place finishes at the indoor championships since 2010 but are still seeking their first title. At the outdoor championships in the same time span, two seconds and a third.

"In the past we've been close, but something has always happened to one or two people," says Evans. "This week, everyone has to show up. It's going to take every single person getting the point they are supposed to get and a few stepping up and getting some unexpected points.

Four athletes who have won individual indoor titles will be competing this week: Evans, Reagan Colyer, Samantha Hodgson and Erika McLeod. Evans (triple jump), Hodgson (shot put) and McLeod (pentathlon) sit atop the Big Sky performance list in those events, giving the team a been-there, done-that attitude.

"I've been a part of a lot of teams since I've been here, and this is the most confident I've been going into a conference championship," says Evans.

"There is a level of maturity and calmness with this team. Everyone is excited and ready, but there is a level of calmness as well. A lot of the underclassmen have fed off that and are on the same page as us."

Women's Notes

* The meet opens on Thursday with the women's pentathlon and day one of the men's heptathlon. The pentathlon, which concludes in one day, gives Montana a chance to start the meet with a big edge in points.

McLeod and senior Nicole Stroot lead the conference by a healthy margin. McLeod, last year's pentathlon champion, scored 3,863 points at Eastern Washington in December. Stroot scored 3,813 last month at Montana State.

Idaho State's Bailey Woodbury, with 3,654 points at the Snake River Open in late January, is the only other Big Sky athlete to score more than 3,500 points this winter.

Montana also will have Jenna Dukovcic and Hannah Coburn competing.

"We've got the potential to score a lot of points," says UM coach Brian Schweyen. "We've got two girls sitting atop the conference who are in great shape, then two other girls whose potential is beyond anything they've done to this point.

"I'm looking for three girls to score in that event, maybe even four."

* Evans leads the Big Sky in the triple jump by a similar type of margin. Four times this winter she has gone 41 feet or better. Second place in the Big Sky is Northern Colorado's Juliette Cossey, who has gone 39-5.25.

The real drama will be for second place, with six athletes holding season bests between 38 feet and Cossey's mark. One of those is Montana's Arielle Walden, who is on a roll. At each of the last four meets she has gone 37-11 or farther. A 1-2 finish for Montana is a possibility.

The event's other drama will be whether Evans can free herself of her 41-foot rut and land something past 43, which she'll need to do to make nationals in two weeks at College Station, Texas.

"It feels like every meet I've done this season when I haven't qualified for nationals has felt like a loss," says Evans, who hasn't lost a triple jump competition this winter, finishing first in all five.

"It's a lot of pressure to wait until the last meet to get it done, but I also generally do well at big meets under pressure. There is no reason it shouldn't happen, because it should have already happened. My first three jumps, I'm just going to go out gunning for it."

* The long jump will provide the top-end drama the triple jump is likely to be missing. It's an event Montana went 1-2-3 at last May's outdoor championships behind Evans, Stroot and McLeod.

Northern Arizona's Shanice McPherson, who has jumped 20-1.5, leads the Big Sky. Evans ranks second with her mark of 19-6 at Eastern Washington in December. Seven athletes, including Stroot, have gone 19 feet or better this winter. McLeod went a season-best 18-10 on Friday at Bozeman.

With Montana holding three of the top 10 spots going into the championships and Northern Arizona and Sacramento State both holding two each, it has the potential to be a key swing event.

"It's going to be competitive, which is the best part about it. It's going to be a fun event," says Evans. "We swept last year, and I think we've got it again."

* One of the reasons Montana has so many points based on the performance list is the newfound depth in the middle-distance and distance events.

Emily Cheroske and Megan Franz rank third and fifth in the 800 meters among the entries, Carly Smiedala ninth. Reagan Colyer, the 800 champion as a freshman, ranks fifth in the mile, Rosa Hardarson seventh.

Emily Pittis is first in the 3,000 meters, Colyer eighth, and Jessica Bailey ranks fourth in the 5,000 meters.

The athlete to keep an eye on will be Pittis, because for as experienced as Montana's top-of-their-event athletes are, Pittis is anything but.

She didn't race an individual event at last year's indoor championships as a freshman and didn't score for the Grizzlies in either the 1,500 or 5,000 meters at last year's outdoor championships.

Now she's atop the league's performance list with her 9:44.88 from Washington.

Weber State's Ellie Child, last fall's Big Sky cross country champion, Northern Arizona's Paige Gilchrist, who clocked a 16:09.04 in the 5,000 meters two weeks ago, a time that ranks in the top 30 nationally, and Montana State's Alyssa Snyder all have more experience than Pittis and season-best times that are within two seconds of Pittis's.

That's why the 3,000 meters will be an event to watch. It's the difference between a performance-list time and proving it head-to-head in the fishbowl of a championship setting.

* Montana is ranked second in both relays. Scheduled to race the 4x400 is Olivia Ellis, Carly Smiedala, Emily Cheroske and Erika McLeod. The DMR: Emily Pittis (1,200m), Megan Franz (400m), Rosa Hardarson (800m) and Reagan Colyer (1,600m).

* Hodgson, the 2016 indoor champion, wasn't among the Big Sky leaders in the shot put a few weeks ago, but the last three weeks she has gone 46-5.5, 46-11 and 47-11.75 to take over the top spot.

* The women's weight throw is like the women's triple jump. Northern Arizona's Brooke Andersen threw 71-0.75 last weekend to move up to ninth nationally. Montana's Hana Feilzer leads the chase group with her throw of 62-10.75.

She is one of four athletes outside of Andersen who have gone farther than 60 feet, making her another Grizzly who could have a big swing of points depending on whether she brings her best stuff or not. It's what championship teams are built upon.

* Besides doubling up in the pentathlon and long jump, McLeod will be racing the 200 meters, an event she ranks fifth, and Stroot will be competing in the 60-meter hurdles, where she ranks seventh.

* Jane Booth, who will be competing at her first championships, ranks fifth in the high jump. She went a season-best 5-7 at the very championships venue two weeks ago.

"This is a team that has worked very hard to get to where they are," says Schweyen. "They have really come together as a team, and I'm excited about them. They compete hard, they get along, and they support one another."

Men's Notes

* After 1,500 words about the women, full disclosure: Montana also has a men's team. And one of the team's best chances to get off to a good start, just like the women, will come in the multi-events.

The Grizzlies have five of the Big Sky's 13 top-ranked athletes entered in the heptathlon, though four of them will be competing in the multi-events for the first time at the Big Sky championships.

"Potentially we could get a lot of points there," says Schweyen. "I'm looking for a number of our guys to do some damage in that event."

Freshman Brendan Thurber-Blaser has only competed in one heptathlon, the Candy Cane Invitational, when he scored 4,858 points more than two months ago, but that still has him ranked third in the Big Sky behind Sacramento State's Max Jette (5,089) and Portland State's Donta Robinson (4,900).

After a break from competition to recover from an injury, Thurber-Blaser has been back putting up PRs the last two weeks and has a chance to challenge for heptathlon title.

Also ranking high is Charlie Bush, the only Montana athlete competing who has championship multi-events experience. He ranks fourth with his score of 4,816.

Everyone else -- Dylan Reynolds, Grant Whitcutt and Josh Riley -- are outside the top eight but holding season bests within 150 points of No. 8.

* Sterling Reneau will be doubling in the 200 and 400 meters. He ranks ninth in the former, fifth in the latter and knows something about rising to the moment. He finished second in the 400 meters at the outdoor championships last spring.

* Another potential double scorer on the track will be Callum Macnab. He ranks eighth in the 60-meter hurdles, seventh in the 200 meters. He'll need to survive the preliminaries on Friday for a chance to score on Saturday.

* If Karsten Pease did anything last Friday, in dropping his season best in the 800 meters from 1:55.53 to 1:52.40 to move up to seventh in the Big Sky, he gave Montana a two-man threat, along with Jordon Wallin, to make finals in an event that hasn't been a strong one for the Grizzlies over the years.

Wallin ranks 10th.

* Led by Reneau and Macnab -- with Macnab running the opening leg, Reneau the anchor, and Wallin and Reynolds in between -- Montana should be near the top of the standings in the 4x400 relay.

The Grizzlies' seed time ranks third behind Sacramento State and Montana State, and less than two-tenths of a second behind the Bobcats.

In the DMR, Montana will go with Paden Alexander (1,200m), Josh Riley (400m), Emmette Dustybull (800m) and Noah Kells (1,600m). Dustybull ran a career-best 1:55.94 in the 800 meters on Friday at Bozeman.

* Brett Dringman has a chance to win the pole vault. He went 15-11.25 two weeks ago at Pocatello, a height that ranks second in the Big Sky behind the 16-4.75 of Eastern Washington's Larry Still.

Idaho State's Steven Beck also has gone 15-11.25, and ISU's Nathan Heck has gone 15-9, and both will be on their home track, which will make them tough to beat.

* In the shot put, Nick Jackson and Kyle Morris, a freshman, rank eighth and ninth. Morris had a huge PR on Friday in Bozeman, taking his season best from 52-4.25 to 53-10.5. He also had a PR in the weight throw of more than 14 inches.

"What I want to see from the men is everyone who has potential to score go out and get the points they are capable of, and maybe a little more," says Schweyen, whose team is down some key performers who are redshirting the indoor season. "If they do that, they men can do very well.

"This meet is momentum moving toward the outdoor season, when we get everyone back. I want them to perform above expectations this week and carry that over to outdoor."