Men claim first WAC title

For the first time ever, an Idaho men’s team won a WAC Championship.
Vandal track and field competed in the WAC Indoor Championships Thursday through Saturday in Nampa where the men took home the title.
The Vandal men held a one-point lead over Utah State going into the last event of the meet — the 4×400-meter relay. Idaho’s team consisted of sophomore Andrew Bloom, senior Josh Dalton, junior Kyle Tylor and freshman Ben Ayesu-Attah. The men in silver and gold led nearly the whole race to seal the win and the championship in 3:14.62.
“They just ran amazingly,” Idaho coach Julie Taylor said. “If anyone was going to make a surge, they denied it — there was no way they weren’t going to win that race.”
The 4×400-meter relay capped a weekend in which the Vandal men claimed eight individual titles in addition to the championship. Ayesu-Attah, the anchor leg of the relay, said he ran his heart out for the seniors as he clinched the win for the Vandals in the final event.
Dalton added an individual victory in the 800-meter, finishing in 1:52.54.
In all, 24 of the 25 Idaho men scored and earned All-WAC honors with 17 named First-Team members. The men’s team title is its first since 1997 and first ever for any men’s sport since Idaho became a member of the WAC.
Idaho also won the medley relay in what ended up being a two-team race against Utah State. The team composed of Dalton, Bloom, junior James Clark and senior Stephane Colle crossed the finish line just 0.05 seconds ahead of the Aggies.
Senior Andrew Blaser dominated the men’s heptathlon with 5,324 points, almost 200 points ahead of the next competitor. Of all the heptathlon events, Blaser placed first in the shot-put, long jump, high jump and 60-meter hurdles. Blaser also claimed titles in the individual high jump and 60-meter hurdles bringing his total individual titles to three, more than any Vandal has won in a single conference championship.
“He was willing to do even more events if I had asked him to,” said Idaho Director of Track and Field Wayne Phipps. “To come in today after competing two long, hard days and win the high jump, then come back and get third in the vault, then win the hurdles in a PR (personal record) time — you just can’t write that script. There’s no way we even have a shot to be close without him on our team.”
Idaho men swept the top three spots in the pole vault. Senior Jeremy Klas claimed his third consecutive WAC Indoor title, vaulting 17-04.50 feet. He is one of only two Vandals to ever win three consecutive WAC Indoor titles. Freshman Matt Sullivan placed second and sophomore Dylan Watts took third.
Klas also competed in the heptathlon for the first time in his career. The All-American pole-vaulter finished in third place with 4,951 points.
“For Klas to basically just get thrown in after about six days of practicing, that shows what kind of athlete he is and how much he cares about team success,” Phipps said. “You can’t vault as high as he’s vaulted without having a great deal of athleticism. He’s able to make adjustments immediately and he’s very coachable, and that’s one of the reasons he’s been able to perform so well after next to no practice in these events.”
Idaho would not have won the title without individual victories in jumping events. Junior Jason Lorentz won the long jump with a leap of 22-09.75 feet while senior Rendel Jones took first in the triple jump in 47-07.00.
“Coach (Jason) Graham has done an amazing job with those guys,” Phipps said. “He’s obviously been great in his work with our vaulters over the years, but this week he had those guys rolling. Obviously, part of it is Andrew Blaser winning seemingly everything, but Rendel (Jones) had a huge triple jump and Jason (Lorentz) came back with a great long jump.”
Idaho also had several second place finishes including junior Barry Britt in the 3,000-meter, senior Markus Geiger in the 5,000-meter and sophomore Kyle Rothwell in the weight throw.
“I don’t have words for it. It’s just so unbelievable,” Klas said. “We came into it thinking we were going to win, and that was a great mentality. After we finished up day one, we sat down as a team and had a pump-up meeting. I’ve never seen a team so into it for everyone else.”
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]

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Stephan Wiebe Sports reporter Sophomore in journalism Can be reached at [email protected]

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