Griz emerge from hibernation, head to Spokane to resume indoor season

The Montana track and field team, after a longer than typical winter break, will emerge from hibernation this weekend to resume the indoor season at the Spokane Indoor Challenge held at The Podium.

The event will be the first in over a month for the Grizzlies, and comes with just a week of training for the student-athletes that returned from winter break on January 13. Head coach Doug Fraley, now in his third season at Montana, said the whole group is excited to be back in action.

"This is a week longer break than we normally have so it got a little bit drawn out," Fraley said. "All the kids are excited to be back and the staff is excited to have them back and be coaching them up. We're really looking forward to going through a full week of practice to get back in a routine and then going to knock some rust off in Spokane this weekend."

The meet will begin on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. with a few men's field events. The bulk of the meet will take place on Saturday. The track will open at 10:00 a.m. with the women's 60-meter hurdle while three different field events begin at the same time.

Montana were picked to finish 5^th in the Big Sky Conference on the men's side in the Preseason Coaches' Poll, and 9^th on the women's side. It's the highest preseason ranking for the Grizzly men since 2015.

The placement in the preseason poll matches where the Grizzly men finished in 2024. The 5^th place result in Spokane last year was the best finish at an indoor championship for Montana since 2020.

The women also match where they finished last year in the preseason polls.

The Grizzlies had two indoor Big Sky Champions in 2024, and both return to defend their crowns this season. Erin Wilde won the women's high jump in Spokane as part of a perfect season for her. The junior from Whitefish has three Big Sky titles, two outdoor and one indoor.

Cooper Hewett also returns after claiming the men's 60m crown in 2024. Hewett set a new program record in Spokane, running a 6.72 60m on his way to the title.

There are several other Grizzly veterans who return, many of whom are making their season debut in Spokane after sitting the December meet in Bozeman out.

"We've got some veterans that we held out of the Bozeman meet in December that we're getting ready to debut," Fraley said. "Excited to get our first look at them not having competed since May at the outdoor championship."

There are plenty of freshmen who made impressive debuts in Bozeman, and Fraley is excited about the potential of the season for his squads. In Spokane, it will be more about getting into the flow of things again and assessing each student-athlete coming off a month-long break.

They have a new training space with the Grizzly Indoor Practice Facility, which will be a big boost this season for the program to practice during the cold weather months. But with athletes home for break, there was a mixed bag of spaces available for training.

Despite that, Fraley has liked what he has seen in the week of training leading up to the meet.

"We really take it on an individual basis based on what people were able to do when they were at home during the break. Some people were in good weather and could do everything on their workout menu, other people had to improvise because they live in a different climate," Fraley said. "The early returns are that we had kids doing their work because they look pretty good coming back."

The Podium is one of the best indoor venues in the Northwest, and the meet should have plenty of impressive competition on hand including several Big Sky Conference foes. For Montana, it's the first step on the path to the Big Sky Championships at Northern Arizona in two months.

"We will just look at our team broadly after we finish up on Saturday and see where we're at coming off the break to be able to build through January and into February," Fraley said. "It's always the plan to progress through each of the four regular season meets up to the Big Sky Championships at the end of February in Flagstaff."

Griz emerge from hibernation, head to Spokane to resume indoor season

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Players Mentioned

Cooper Hewett

Erin Wilde

University of Montana Athletics