Track and field opens season in Boise before hosting home meet Friday
Idaho coach Tim Cawley got to see his team in action for the first time Friday and Saturday as the Vandal track and field team competed in the Ed Jacoby Invite and Multi in Nampa, Idaho.
“It was good to finally get to see the team in uniform and competing for this first time,” Cawley said. “I thought overall the team competed well for the first time.”
The meet was hosted by Boise State and included teams from Utah State, Washington State, BYU, Alaska Anchorage, Northwest Nazarene, the College of Idaho and more.
The Vandals grabbed one individual victory in the meet. Senior thrower Zach Trumbauer threw a 57-foot toss in the men’s weight throw to win the event by more than two feet. Trumbauer comes into the 2015 indoor track season with All-WAC honors from 2014 that helped lead the Vandals to two WAC Championships last year.
Emmanuel Panchol, also a senior, tied his career-best marks in the high jump with a second-place jump of 6-8.75. Panchol also placed second in the triple jump with a mark of 47-1.75.
“To see Zach win the weight throw was exciting, I thought he competed great today,” Cawley said. “It was also nice to see some conference qualifying marks from (Panchol) in both the high jump and triple jump.”
Senior Dylan Watts finished second in the pole vault with a height of 16-2.75. Watts’ vault was tied for the highest of the meet but he finished second due to number of attempts.
Sophomore Adara Winder had the best finish on the women’s side. The Bonney Lake, Washington, native finished second in the shot put with a career-best mark of 48-3.5.
Only a combined 32 athletes competed for the Vandals in the first meet of the season from the men’s and women’s teams. Cawley said he is redshirting many of the athletes on the men’s side this season and several other athletes won’t start competing until further into the season. Some of the athletes that did compete did so in events that they normally don’t compete in since the Vandals are training through these early season meets, Cawley said.
Stephan Wiebe can be reached at [email protected]