On an extended California road trip that included four separate track and field meets, members of the Idaho men’s and women’s teams survived three consecutive days of competition and returned home with multiple top 10 finishes.
Idaho began the weekend strong Thursday during the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, California. As what has come to be expected, senior distance runner Holly Stanton finished near the top in two separate events. For the first time since last season, Stanton competed in the 3000-meter steeplechase, where she finished fourth overall in the B section of the event, with a personal best time of 10 minutes, 28.67 seconds. Stanton, who celebrated her birthday the same day, said she was happy with her performance and believes it will serve as an indicator for what is yet to come in the future.
“Since it has been almost a year since I’ve steepled, I definitely ran a little more conservative,” Stanton said. “Ending a race with a personal best and knowing you are capable of going so much faster is such an exhilarating feeling.”
Stanton also had a strong showing in the 1500-meter run at the Long Beach Invitational in Norwalk, California, where she finished 22nd overall and was complemented by senior Alycia Butterworth who finished 31st, and junior Halie Raudenbush who finished 40th out of the 125-runner field. Butterworth also enjoyed success in the 5,000-meter run at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California, where she finished 10th overall with a personal best time of 17:01.03.
The 10,000-meter run back at the Long Beach Invitational also proved to be a Vandals’ race, as juniors Alex Sciocchetti and Valerie Mitchell finished first and second in the race, respectively. The two also put up performances that now rank them in the top 10 of the Big Sky Conference for the event.
“Running in California is always such a nice treat, so as a team we really took full advantage of it,” Stanton said. “We all felt that we gained more confidence this weekend in our various events, and if we didn’t reach a season or personal best, we were all pretty close to it.”
Idaho’s successes weren’t limited to just the distance races, as throwers from both the men’s and women’s teams had an impressive weekend.
Senior Zach Trumbauer posted a toss of 183 feet, 6 inches in the hammer throw, earning 10th in the event at the CSULA Twilight Open and greatly improving his distance from last weekend’s Pelluer Invitational.
On the women’s side, junior Tayler Feinauer showed poise with her distance of 134-08 in the javelin.
“My first two meets were pretty rough, which was discouraging, but by my third I just tried to calm down and have fun with it and was much happier with the (134-08),” Feinauer said. “Of course I wish it was further, but it was good for me to be able to change my focus points a little bit for each meet and see how it affected my series. That’s the fun part of this California weekend.”
The Vandals will compete this weekend in Pullman at the Cougar Invitational and will host their second home meet of the season the following weekend when the Twilight Invite begins Friday, May 8.
Kyle Schumaker can be reached at [email protected]
Photo by: Nathan Romans