The second meet of outdoor competition takes the Vandals back to Spokane where Idaho track and field will compete in the Sam Adams Classic Saturday. Idaho also sent a small group of athletes to the Texas Relays held Thursday to Saturday in Austin.
“We’re really familiar with the Spokane atmosphere,” Idaho junior Jason Lorentz said. “We have several meets up there every year. It’s a good facility.”
Ilya Pinchuk | Argonaut Adam Bunch clears a hurdle Wedensday afternoon at the Dan O'Brien Track and Field Complex. Idaho travels to Spokane to compete in the Sam Adams Classic Saturday.
Teams expected to travel to Whitworth for the Sam Adams Classic include Washington State, Idaho, Lewis-Clark State, Gonzaga and Puget Sound.
The Seventh Annual Sam Adams Classic is named after a former Whitworth athlete and coaching legend, Whitworth coach Toby Schwarz said.
“(Sam Adams) actually lettered in four sports: baseball, basketball, track and football,” Schwarz said. “Then he went on to play Canadian football and played, I think, maybe one season for the San Francisco 49ers. Then he came back and coached track and cross country and football here at Whitworth before heading down to WSU and becoming a professor.”
The Sam Adams Classic is one of three meets the Pirates host early in the season. Whitworth, a NCAA Division III school, is used to hosting and competing against Division I schools, Schwarz said. Unlike sports such as football or basketball, Division III track and field athletes are guaranteed to face Division I competition. Schwarz said this helps draw track and field athletes to his program.
The Vandals found success recently at Whitworth’s Buc Invitational March 24 where the women’s team won the meet with 99.5 points and the men’s team placed second behind the Pirates with 58 points to 139. The Vandals did not compete with a full team and had some athletes running in events they weren’t used to competing in.
“We’ll kind of compete a similar kind of team this weekend as well except we sent a handful of our athletes down to the Texas Relays,” said Idaho Director of Track and Field Wayne Phipps. “Now some of the people that competed last weekend will have the chance to compete in their normal event. We don’t have all the rust off yet, we’re still in a training phase. It’s a very difficult training phase … which is going to pay off towards the end of the season.”
As the Vandals continue to train through these first couple meets of the season, Whitworth is taking the opposite approach. The Pirates need top-notch times and marks right from the start since their conference championship comes much earlier in the season, Schwarz said.
The Pirates compete in their conference championship in the middle of the season while the Vandals compete in the WAC Championships at the end.
“We took care of the big problems in indoor season and pre-season,” Lorentz said. “Now we’re fine-tuning, just trying to get to what the coaches expect from us and what we expect ourselves. Each week we pick away at another little thing to try and fix from the previous week.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected].