The Big Sky Outdoor Championships concluded Friday with a number of strong performances from the youth on Idaho’s roaster.
Junior Andrea Condie highlighted the day for the Vandals with a second-place finish in the 5,000-meter finals. She took the silver with a time of 16:38.19, just over one second behind first-place finisher Kelsi Lasota of Montana State. Condie is now currently ranked 49th in the West in the 5,000 meters.
“I thought they did fantastic. We had a lot of young kids stepping up and scoring and we had a lot of people getting themselves into scoring position which was exciting,” Idaho Director of Track and Field/Cross-Country Tim Cawley said in a news release. “I think we scored more points on both sides than we thought we would, with where we’re at with redshirting as many athletes as we have as we build for the future. I thought the kids did fantastic.”
Junior Erin Hagen and sophomore Krista Story improved on their preliminary performances as well in the women’s 1,500 meters. After finishing in fifth and sixth place, respectively, in the preliminary race, Hagen and Story each moved up one place in the finals rankings. Hagen finished in fourth with new personal record of 4:30.44, beating her rank entering the meet by five places. Story finished not far behind in fifth with a time of 4:31.64. Freshman Caleb Seely finished the men’s 1,500 meters in overall fifth place with a time of 3:52.78 after entering the meet ranked 14th in the event.
Sophomore Zachary Short improved his original rank as well, taking sixth place in the discus with a personal best throw of 51.36 meters. Before the meet, Short sat in overall eighth place.
“We always focus on ‘beat your rank’ and we try to celebrate that. We’re going to go to dinner as a team and get everyone up that beat their rank and celebrate it,” Cawley said. “It’s just a big part of it. If you have enough people beat their ranks, then the team beats its rank and we keep moving up. We had a lot of people perform really well.”
Freshman Jenner Higgins grabbed a fifth-place finish in the men’s 800 meters with a time of 1:53.61 to beat his previous 11th-place rank. Junior Kaleala Bass also improved her rank in the women’s 800 meters from 11th to seventh with a time of 2:12.30.
Freshman Nik Chappee grabbed a sixth-place finish in the men’s 400-meter race with a new personal record time of 48.42. Before the race, Chappee was ranked 16th in conference.
Sophomores Jonny Magee and Jordyn Rauer each scored in the triple jump for Idaho. Magee took sixth place with a personal best jump of 14.71 meters. Rauer grabbed a seventh-place finish on the women’s side with a leap of 11.81 meters.
Northern Arizona swept the Championships with first place titles on both the men and women’s side. The NAU men finished with 131 points and the women with 128.
The Idaho men finished in 10th place with 34 points and the women in 12th with 29 points.
The team now waits for a finalized list of athletes who will be participating in the NCAA First Round, set to be announced this week.
Meredith Spelbring can be reached at [email protected]