With all the focus on one meet rather than five in one week, the Idaho track and field team completed a solid showing at the Duane Hartman Invitational Saturday in Spokane.
File Photo by Ilya Pinchuk | Argonaut Senior decathalete Andrew Blaser winds up to toss the discus April 16 in the Kibbie Dome.
“We had some good performances this weekend,” Idaho coach Julie Taylor said. “We didn’t take the whole team this week but those that went did really well.”
The Vandals competed in a low-key meet Saturday after returning from a multiple meet road trip to California the week before.
Several Idaho athletes took advantage of the lessened pressure and good weather to post their best times and marks of the season. On the men’s side thrower Ugis Svazs, a sophomore from Latvia, moved from No. 6 to No. 3 all-time at Idaho in the javelin. He finished second in the event with his throw of 227-05 feet.
Junior Donavan Cunningham took first in discus by nearly 10 feet with his toss of 167-09. Sophomore Andrey Levkiv finished first in shot put with 51-02.75 to complete a strong showing for the Vandals in throwing events.
Freshman Ben Ayesu-Attah and sophomore Andrew Bloom went 1-2 in the 400-meter with times of 49.01 and 49.10. The duo sealed the top two spots despite both of them running nearly a second slower than their personal bests.
In distance events, Josh Dalton finished first in the 800-meter in 1:52.93, beating three teammates in the process.
Idaho athletes won the triple jump on the men’s and women’s teams. Senior Rendel Jones dominated the men’s triple jump, winning the event with a leap of 45-05 feet. He won easily despite jumping two feet under his personal record. Senior Alyssa Covington won the women’s triple jump with her mark of 18-01.75.
The Vandals put on a clinic in the women’s throwing events, taking seven of the eight top two finishes. Junior Kristine Leonard and freshman Johanna Hocketstaller took first and second in the shot put. Leonard also took second in the discus posting personal bests in each event.
Junior Ellen Rouse and Hocketstaller took first and second in the javelin for the Vandals and senior Gabby Midles and junior Sarah Nutsch took one and two in the hammer throw to round out the throwing dominance by the Vandals.
Freshman Allee Cooper finished second in the 100-meter, crossing the finish line in 12.55 seconds while Senior Emma Goode took second in the 400-meter with her time of 57.93.
Senior Lauren Schaffer dominated the 800-meter field winning the race by almost eight seconds. She finished in 2:09.45.
Junior Laurel Draper set a new personal record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase finishing in third in 11:17.40.
In the hurdles, sophomore Cait Rowland took advantage of a small field and won both events. She finished in 15.35 in the 100-meter hurdles and 1:06.29 in the 400-meter hurdles.
Taylor said the smaller meet was nice after several large meets last week and as finals approach for the athletes. Next week, the Vandals compete at home for the first time during the outdoor season.
“We had some good things happen (in the Duane Hartman Invitational),” Taylor said. “The meet was kind of a lower key meet … We had a number of good performances overall.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]