The Utah track and field team traveled to California last weekend to compete in the USC Trojan Invitational. While the event had no team scores, the Utes posted some impressive individual performances in the second event of the outdoor season.
“It was a really good weekend,” said head coach Kyle Kepler. “We had some really good things happen. To have these things happen so early in the season is exciting.”
The lone event winner for Utah was Rosalie Waller in the 800-meter race, who clocked in with a time of 2:09.29. While Waller was the star of the event, four other Utes also competed. Andrea Chavez finished in fourth place while Kendahl Melvin, Nikki Rietz and Allison Aafedt finished in ninth, 10th and 11th places, respectively.
Fresh off a victory in the Aztec Invitational the week before, Stephanie Jolley finished second in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 60.37.
“I am pleased with how I am opening this year,” Jolley said. “I am starting off this year with faster times than last year. Hopefully I can continue to improve and grab that school record this year.”
Although no other Utes finished atop the podium, many finished with personal-best performances.
Susannah Hurst finished the 1500 meter race in 4:31:29, which earned fourth place. The mark beat her personal best time by 10 seconds. Also finishing the race with a personal best time was Giselle Slotboom, who finished in 4:38.75.
In the 3000-meter race, Katelyn Stringfellow ran a personal best time of 10:07.32, finishing in eighth place overall. She barely edged out teammate Rebekah Winterton.
In the hammer throw, Aoife Hickey recorded a personal-best throw of 188-06 feet and received third place. In a strange turn of events, teammate Anneli Stahl’s throw was recorded at that same distance, but Hickey’s was less than an inch further than Stahl’s, and Stahl took fourth place.
With it being so early in the outdoor season, all of the strong performances are giving the Utes great confidence early on.
“This year we have more upperclassmen,” Jolley said. “Our team is a lot bigger and has a lot more depth from even just a few years ago. We definitely have a lot of potential.”
The Utes will be back in action this weekend in multiple places. While most the team will travel to Orem to compete in the UVU Invitational, the distance group will be going to Palo Alto, Calif., to compete in the Stanford Invitational.
“[The Stanford Invitational] will be a great meet to see where we are at,” Kepler said. “A lot of runners will be running their first races of the outdoor season this weekend. It will be good to find out where we are at and set up training for the rest of the season.”