Wyoming sophomore Jeremiah JamesCOLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Wyoming sophomore Jeremiah James highlighted what was otherwise a tough final day for the UW track and field teams at the Mountain West Conference Indoor championships on Saturday.
James won the triple jump on Saturday as the Cowboys scored 77 team points for sixth place. The Cowgirls finished in ninth with just 26 points.
On both the men’s and women’s side the championship went to Brigham Young as both teams scored 224 team points.
Individually, senior Jake Shanklin and James came away with their own hardware, as they were awarded with the top-performance and high-point awards. Shanklin won the award for the second straight year for his 71-feet, 9 inches throw in the 35-pound weight throw and James earned 20 points for the Cowboys and shared the honor with Air Force senior Sean Houseworthn who won the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter run.
James took the championship in the men’s triple jump with his leap of 49-6 1/2. James backed up his long jump championship from day two with his best triple jump of the season. Junior John Alderson finished fourth at 48-10 1/4. As for the Cowgirl jumpers, sophomore Britney Jackson placed 10th in the high jump while senior Lindsey Fuller finished in 14th in the triple jump.
“Jeremiah was third heading into the finals and had enough in the tank to pull out the victory,” said assistant coach Quincy Howe. “John competed very well and stepped up at the right time and had a nice season best today.”
The throwers had a very solid day, as they competed in the shot put events. Senior Cowboy Sam Lambert took fourth-place honors with his toss of 51-9 1/4, while true freshman Toby Wood finished in ninth. The Cowgirls were represented by true freshman Kelly Gray, who failed to make the finals and finished in 18th out of 24 competitors.
The distance crew competed in the 3,000-meter run and the 1-mile run on Saturday. Leading the charge for the Cowgirls was junior Emily Higgins, as she placed sixth in both events. As for the men, senior Michael Huntington finished sixth for the Cowboys in the 1-mile run with his time of 4:25.38. Sophomores Greg Miller and Taylor Kelting placed 11th and 14th respectively in the 3,000-meter run.
The sprint team only had three competing in the finals of their events on Saturday. The Cowboys competed in the 400-meter dash, as junior Kekoa Chavez placed seventh with his time of 48.83 seconds. Fellow junior, Jay Petsch, qualified for the 60-meter hurdles with his record tying time of 8.10, and on Saturday he finished in seventh 8.38.
Cowgirls junior Erica Anderson ran the 10-best 400-meter time in Wyoming history during the preliminaries, but was unable to match it as she finished in seventh in 59.35.
“We had some tremendous performances this weekend from some very good kids. Now, if we can get the rest of the team to compete at that level, we would be pretty tough,” said head coach Don Yentes. “Both teams just left too many points on the board and allowed other teams to take them. We need to take advantage of every opportunity or this is what happens. We have our work cut out for us.”
Up next for the Cowboys and Cowgirls will be the NCAA Championships for Shanklin in the weight throw on March 13-14 in College Station, Texas.
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