Coaches pleased with effort at MWC

Richard Anderson photos
Wyoming's Sharon Larrier, center, competes in the prelims of the 400-meter dash Saturday at the Mountain West Conference Championships. At bottom left, Sam Lambert uncorks a throw in the shot put.
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By Bobby Abplanalp
Wyoming Sports.org
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Spring finally showed up for the most beautiful of conditions to cap off the final day Saturday of the Mountain West Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships at the Louis S. Madrid Sports Complex.

On a calm sunny day with a slight breeze, the 10th annual MWC Outdoor Track and Field Championships came to a close with Brigham Young taking home the title on both the men’s and women’s side.

Brigham Young senior All-American Kyle Perry won the High Point award with 21.25 points, while his coach, Mark Robison, took home the MWC Coach of the Year honors.

“I am very pleased,” said Robison, courtesy of BYUCougars.com. “We had some great performances and several conference champions. We have a great team and now we get to prepare for the next two weeks and get ready to do our best at regional’s.”

Brigham Young women’s coach Craig Poole won the MWC Coach of the Year award in guiding his 10th ranked Cougars to the conference championship.

“I’m very pleased with our teams’ performance,” Poole said. “It was certainly a team effort if you look at how we scored and everybody scored in an event across the board. I don’t think there was an event that we did not score in and so we are very pleased with that.”

This was the first time that the University of Wyoming hosted a track and field conference championship since 1968.

“The championship Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day for us,” MWC Outdoor Track and Field Championship Coordinator Chelsea Guetz said. “We’ve had a couple of championship records broken today, which is very exciting. I think for the most part, we’ve experienced some great competition and we’ve really received a great deal of help from the Wyoming staff; they’ve been most hospitable for us.”

The process of an annual MWC host site is determined by rotation.

“One year we’ll go to altitude and one year we’ll go to sea level until you’re (school) is in the rotation again,” Guetz said. “It’s not a bid process, as long as you have the facility, you’re in the rotation; so they (Wyoming) should host again in the future.”

Wyoming coach Don Yentes said it will be nine years until UW is eligible to host the MWC Outdoor Track and Field Championships again, but it was well worth hosting this year.

“I’m pleased with the administration and all the work and effort to make this a top-notch meet,” Yentes said. “The (Laramie) chamber of commerce helped us out a little bit and it was just a full participation from everybody. I’m very pleased.”

Yentes was also pleased with his team’s overall effort throughout the meet.

“We had a lot of very good efforts,” Yentes said. “We got a couple more kids who qualified (for regional’s) -- Shaylee Babbitt and Jennifer Schmitz in the hurdles --, and all the 4x400 women qualified.”

“We’re a very small team here compared to the rest of the (MWC) schools and we just had a few mental errors, a few kids who just didn’t get it done, and for us to be real successful we have to have 100 percent getting it done. But I’m very pleased with their efforts.”

There is a lot of anticipation heading into next season with many of the same faces returning for Wyoming.

“We have a very young team and we had a really good recruiting class and we’re not quite done yet (recruiting),” Yentes said. “I think we’re going to have some good things happen and two weeks from now we got regional’s and I can’t wait to get down there (Norman, Okla.), and maybe we can get some kids down to nationals.”

Although Wyoming finished last on the men’s and women’s side of the MWC Outdoor Track and Field Championships, there is still a lot to be positive about.

“Here we finished last and this is the biggest group that we’ve ever qualified for the NCAA Regional’s,” Yentes said. “So, we’re really pleased.”

“Today was gorgeous, you can’t ask for any better track weather than today,” Poole said. “The thing (meet) went great, great facilities, great day, the only thing I’m sad about is if they had time to do the sprints. I think that’s a travesty, because they’re as legitimate as any race.”

The next event for Wyoming will be the NCAA Regional Championships in Norman, Okla., on May 29-30.