BSU track and field sets records at home meet

Boise State’s indoor track season continued Friday and Saturday in Nampa at the Bronco Indoor Invitational.  The second indoor meet of the spring served as a stage for several records to be broken or nearly broken by Boise State athletes.

Sophomore Elena Kafourou again won the triple jump for the Broncos. Her jump of 42 feet and two inches (12.85 meters) was one-quarter inch shy of the Boise State record set by Abigail Ferguson in 1996. Sophomore Simon Wardhaugh also had the second furthest weight throw in Boise State history with a distance of 63 feet and 11 and one-half inches (19.49 meters) en route to winning that event at the meet. Finally, the Western Athletic Conference and Boise State heptathlon records were both beaten by Heigo Nurmsalu who amassed a score of 5290.

These were just some of the weekend highlights for head coach Mike Maynard.

“The meet went very well,” Maynard said. “We had some really good performances. Elena was about a centimeter off of the school record. Zacharias Arnos improved his triple jump from last week and in the multi-events Aspen Clontz won the combined events on Friday in her first ever combined events.
We think she could qualify for nationals for that and there’s still a lot of room for improvement.”

In addition to these superior performances the Bronco distance runners had a great showing. Becky Guyette and Breanna Sande finished one-two in the women’s mile with times of 4:58.16 and 5:01.94. Cody Eaton won the men’s mile with a time of 4:19.6. Guyette also went on to place third in the 800 meter run with a time of 2:19.

Distance coach David Welsh was particularly impressed with Eaton and Guyette.

“They looked pretty good,” Welsh said. “It’s only the second week of the season and we always pick something we need to work on or fix. They’re both making progress. Becky is probably in the top three in the conference. She has hopes of qualifying in longer events for nationals, so she’s practicing the shorter stuff now.”

Guyette was pleased with her performance in those events, too.

“I felt good,” Guyette said following the meet. “I felt really strong. Coach Welsh had laid out a plan for me, so I knew what to do. I felt pretty confident. It was just a lot of trying to stay focused.”

The BSU sprinters joined the distance runners with many top finishers. Kayleen McDowell won the women’s 400 with a time of 57.67 seconds. Nataucha Lowry placed second in the 60 with a time of 7.78 seconds and Megan Olivetti won the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 8.91 seconds and placed second in the 200 with a time of 25.39. Both the men and women won the 4×400 meter relays as well.

After the weekend was over Coach Maynard admitted it was a good meet for his team and his staff.

“We definitely stepped it up in a lot of places,” Maynard said.
“We had a lot of people competing last week in some events that weren’t their primary events, so we’re looking a little better. Overall, I’m pleased.”

MICHELLE MILLIKEN
Sports Writer

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