Weekly Track and Field Notes: Snake River Open
ABOUT THE SNAKE RIVER OPEN
Idaho State hosts the Snake River Open Friday, Jan. 14 and Saturday, Jan. 15 at Holt Arena. Friday will be reserved for the pentathlon and heptathlon events with the individual events to follow Saturday. Events begin at 1 p.m. Friday and at 9:30 a.m. Saturday. Athletes from Utah State, Brigham Young, Southern Utah, Utah, Utah Valley, Weber State and Westminster will be competing as well as some high school students.
“This meet provides not only a chance to compete but gives the athletes an opportunity to get some marks for the conference,” ISU Head Coach
Dave Nielsen said. “It will also allow us to match up against some athletes from Weber State who we will face at the conference championship later this season.”
TRACK AND FIELD REVIEW
This is Idaho State's first official meet of the 2011 indoor campaign. The Bengals competed in the annual Tie Dye meet, an intrasquad scrimmage, in December.
During the 2009-10 season, the Bengal women finished seventh at the Big Sky Conference Indoor Championships and fifth at the outdoors while the men captured sixth at both events.
At the conference indoor championships Cassie Merkley and
Mike Arnold walked away with event titles with Merkley capturing the pentathlon and Arnold winning the pole vault. Nine Bengals made the all-conference team at the Big Sky Indoor Championship including the four men from the second-place distance medley relay team.
At the Big Sky Conference Outdoor Championship, ISU once again demonstrated its strength in the pole vault with the Bengal men taking the top four spots in the event highlighted by a first-place finish by
Sam Pierson. Pierson's mark of 17-7.50 moved him into the No. 2 spot on the all-time performers list just behind current assistant coach Paul Litchfield. Cassie Merkley set an ISU record with her win in the javelin with a throw of 161-10.25 and also won the heptathlon with 5,351 points. Idaho State also walked away with the women's 4x400 relay title and boasted 14 all-conference athletes.
MEET SCHEDULE
Friday
1 p.m. Pentathlon
1:15 p.m. Heptathlon
Saturday
Running Events Field Events
9:30 a.m. 60m Hurdle (Heptathlon) 10:30 a.m. Weight Throw (M)
12 p.m. 60m Hurdle Prelims 11 a.m. Long Jump (W)
12:25 p.m. 60m Dash Prelims 11:30 a.m. Weight Throw (W)
12:45 p.m. Mile 12:30 p.m. Pole Vault (M)
1:15 p.m. 60m Hurdle Final High Jump (W)
1:30 p.m. 400m Final Long Jump (M)
2 p.m. 60m Dash Final 12:30 p.m. Shot Put (M)
2:15 p.m. 800m Final 2 p.m. Shot Put (W)
2:45 p.m. 200m Final High Jump (M)
3:15 p.m. 3000m Final 2:30 p.m. Pole Vault (W)
4 p.m. 4x400m Relay Triple Jump (M)
