After competing in multiple meets last week, Idaho track and field travels to Spokane to compete in the Duane Hartman Invitational today and Saturday.
Jesse Hart | Argonaut Senior Andrew Blaser propels off the starting block Wednesday at the Dan O'Brien Track and Field Complex. The Vandals will compete Saturday at the Duane Hartman Invitational, hosted by Spokane Falls Community College.
Idaho Director of Track and Field Wayne Phipps said the athletes benefitted from having multiple opportunities to compete but it was still a long week overall.
“We gained a lot from this weekend,” he said. “I think we really took advantage.”
The Vandals have to focus on preparing for one meet this week in practice rather than planning for multiple competitions.
The Duane Hartman Invitational, hosted by Spokane Falls Community College, will be low-key compared to last week’s national meets in California. This week, the Vandals compete against familiar Pacific Northwest competition.
“I like these low-key meets,” Idaho coach Julie Taylor said. “Hopefully we’ll have some winners out of this weekend.”
Taylor said this will also be a good weekend to work on technique.
The Vandals took 18 top-three finishes in the 2011 Duane Hartman Invitational including seven first-place finishes. Junior Colin Briggs, long jump,, junior Keli Hall, 800-meter, and sophomore Holly Stanton, 3,000-meter steeplechase, are the returning champions from last year’s team.
Several Vandal athletes said they look forward to competing as a whole team this weekend, having been split into separate meets for the majority of the season.
“This area has a lot of very good quality track and field programs — the competition is always very good,” Phipps said. “We’ve had a number of very great performances at this meet over the years at this meet. We are expecting to continue that trend and get some more (personal records) and hopefully a couple more NCAA qualifying marks.”
In addition to the Duane Hartman Invitational, Phipps said two distance runners may compete at Stanford this weekend. Hannah Kiser and Stephane Colle, two of Idaho’s best distance runners, hope to be healthy enough to take advantage of the Payton Jordan Invitational — another prestigious meet against top-tier athletes.
“We’ve had a little bit of illness that’s run through the team and they haven’t had an opportunity to get a qualifying mark for the NCAA’s so we’re taking advantage of a great meet in Stanford to hopefully get a couple more people qualified for nationals,” Phipps said.
Phipps said as the team heads into the second half of the season, it will focus more on the events and training will start to slow down as the athletes try to peak their performances in preperation for the WAC Championships.
“Always, team goals for all of us are to get better every single week,” Idaho senior Alyssa Covington said. “We’ve just had a ton of PR’s (this year) — I think we have 10 or 15 people (getting personal records) every single week.”
The Duane Hartman Invitational is Idaho’s last road meet before its first home meet at the refurbished Dan O’Brien Track & Field Complex. Idaho hosts the Vandal Jamboree May 4 and 5 in Moscow.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]