Indoor track and field begin season

Nestled quietly away in Nampa at Jackson’s Track at the Idaho Center is the defending Western Athletic Conference indoor track and field men’s championship team getting ready to stake claim at a second run at it.

The Boise State men and women’s indoor track and field teams host the Dominos Pizza Community Open Saturday afternoon.

"This is really kinda just an opener for us," BSU head coach Mike Maynard said.

No other full team will be in competition on Saturday, but there will be athletes from Utah Valley State, Eastern Washington and a handful from NNU and Treasure Valley Community College.

The Boise State men’s team finished last season as WAC champions and ranked 15^th in the nation. Coming back this season are a number of top performers from last year’s squad. Junior long distance runner, and returning WAC champion in the mile Forest Braden returns as the top runner for the men’s team. Senior Robin Wemple will anchor the women’s long distance squad this season.

Maynard specializes in coaching the weight throwers on the team, and does show great compassion for the athletes. They may be the best in the conference.

Mattis Jons and Colin Post will both look to battle for the WAC title. Jons finished second last season in the conference and has had a great fall practice.

Sprinter Antoine Echols was second only to former Bronco Ray Ardill in the 200-meter at WAC championships last year, and has shown signs of being a possible national qualifier in the race.

As great as the men’s team is, it may be the women’s team that may be the most fun to watch early on this season.

Sophomore Miruna Mataoanu is one of the best young female athletes in the conference, and competed at the national level last season as a freshman. Neely Falgout and Sophie Lundstrom are both multi-event competitors. Lundstrom last season was just thrown in to the pentathlon and finished sixth in the conference.

Jackiann Morain will compete in both the 200 and 400 this season.

However, the most excited Maynard got when talking about his team, is the five possible athletes that he may have for later on this season. He said that there are three freshman and two junior college transfers that the Broncos have that should be eligible to compete for this season that they were recruiting last season.

"They will literally reconfigure our point potential at [the] WAC [tournament] and if we’re blessed and everything goes through for these athletes, we maybe better than we were last year," Maynard said.

The Broncos are also fortunate enough to not have to travel at all this season as a team. They will host every meet that they compete in, including the WAC Championships in the end of February.

Trevor Horn
Sports Editor

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