In its second-to-last meet of the indoor track and field regular season, Utah was at the Mountain State Games in Pocatello, Idaho, fine-tuning its act for the MWC Championships coming up later this month.
The competition, which ran on Feb. 1 and 2, saw the Utes win three events. The men’s ‘A’ team won the distance medley, in a time of 10 minutes, 10.06 seconds, sophomore Nephi Tyler took top honors in the men’s one-mile run (4:10.00), and junior Kristy Slade was first in the pentathlon’s long jump (5.56m).
Slade continued her dominance in the pentathlon, placing second in the high jump (1.62m), third in its 800-meter run (2:22.47), and seventh in the 55-meter hurdles (8.70 seconds). Those performances led to her finishing second overall in the pentathlon, with 3,704 points.
Teammate Erianne Allen followed with a third-place finish, with 3,597 points.
The Utes also had a litany of top-five finishes in the two-day meet.
Senior April Jackson was fourth on Friday in the 55-meter hurdles, but improved to second in the same event on Saturday. She also added a second-place finish in Saturday’s high jump finals, and was followed in fourth place by sophomore Katie Harrop in that event.
Meanwhile, senior Audrey Kiser added another pair of top-five finishes to her rsum, placing second in Saturday’s weight throw, and fifth in the shotput. Junior Natasha Eldridge was third in Friday’s shotput, and fifth in Saturday’s weight throw.
Friday’s other top finishers included Alisa Fogt (second, 400m dash), Brooke LoBue (third, pole vault), Lion Gallegos (fourth, 5,000m run), Charity Catmull (fifth, 5,000m run) and Noelle Pikus (fifth, shotput).
Saturday’s other top finishers included B.J. Christensen and Alexandria Nash, who each took fourth, in the 3,000m run and the triple jump, respectively.
The team’s season finale comes on Feb. 15 at the Montana State Invitational, in Bozeman, Mont. The MWC Championships run from Feb. 21 to 23 in Colorado Springs, Colo.