The University of Idaho Argonaut

The University of Idaho track and field team traveled to Seattle this weekend for the Husky Classic, where Idaho thrower Russ Winger hit an NCAA automatic qualifying mark for the fourth time this season.
Thrower Matt Wauters threw 67 feet, 5 inches in the men’s weight throw to take fourth, and Winger followed closely, finishing sixth with a throw of 63-11.

Winger dominated the men’s shot put again, throwing 66-6 1/2. The throw was good enough to beat his season-best throw by nearly a foot, hit his fourth NCAA automatic qualifying mark and break the Dempsey Indoor facility record previously held by John Godina, who set the record in 2003. Winger’s worst throw of the day, 63-8 1/4 was enough to beat the rest of the competition by nearly five feet.

“Russ wasn’t too happy with how the weight throw went for him, so it was nice to get a good performance in the shot put,” Idaho throws coach Julie Taylor said. “He threw well, but he’s still working on some technical stuff, so for him to throw 20.28 meters right now is pretty impressive.”

Junior jumper David Holmon set a personal best in the triple jump by jumping 50-10, an effort good enough to take second in the event. The jump moved Holmon to 21st in the nation in the event and met a NCAA provisional qualifying mark.
Idaho coach Yogi Teevens said that any of Holmon’s four jumps would have been a personal best and that the two jumps Holmon fouled on were actually bigger than his best jump of the day.

“He’s going to still jump farther,” Teevens said. “His knee was hurting, so we were being a little conservative, and for him to be even better than where he was at the end of the year last year is very exciting.”
True freshman Paul Dittmer turned in an impressive performance in the men’s 60-meter hurdles by running a lifetime best 7.97 seconds — good enough for second overall in the event. In a field laden with PAC-10 runners, Dittmer shined by coming within just one one-hundreth of a second of breaking the UI record for the event.

“This is traditionally not a super fast sprint facility, so for him to run 7.97 here is awesome,” Idaho coach Wayne Phipps said. “He’s got a ton of potential. We’ve only kind of touched on a couple things technically since he got here in January, so I feel he’s a guy who can be a legitimate NCAA All-American down the road.’’

Women’s distance runner Melissa McFaddan knocked off 23 seconds from her 5,000-meter time. McFaddan, who ran the race in 17:52.72, now has the WAC’s third best time in the event.
The Vandals head back to the Palouse this weekend as they will try to hone their skills at the WSU Open II. The meet will be held in Pullman, and is the pre-conference tune-up for the WAC Indoor Championships, which will be held in two weeks in Nampa.