Cedar City, Utah- After a successful indoor track and field season, the T-Birds will begin their outdoor season this weekend at the Utah Tech Invite starting Friday, Mar. 21.
Head Coach Eric Houle Said:
"The athletes are excited about starting the outdoor season. We won't be running everyone this weekend, but we will be trying out different events for each participating athlete. It'll be nice to get out of the snow and do some racing."
Meet Info
What: Utah Tech Invite hosted by Utah Tech
When: March 21 through March 22
Where: Greater Zion Stadium, St. George, Utah.
Who: SUU, Utah Tech, Snow College, Southern Nevada, Utah, Utah State, Utah Valley, Westminster, and Run Elite Program
Live Results: finishedresults.trackscoreboard.com
Men's Last Time Out & Preview
The Thunderbirds last competed on March 1 at the WAC Indoor Championships. Jaedyn Carpenter led the way for both teams as he finished first in the 400-meter race with a time of 46.65 and was crowned WAC Champion in that event. Jaedyn will look to continue his success into the outdoor season.
Santiago Gaitain was also impressive as he had two second-place finishes, in the mile with 4:08.40 and the 3000-meter race with 8:21. Santiago is second in the SUU Outdoor Track and Field record book in the mile with a time of 4:01.94 which he set in 2023. He will look to break that record and hopefully more during the Outdoor season.
Jared Sharp finished first in the heptathlons 1000-meter race with a time of 2:36.93. He would end up finishing eighth overall in the heptathlon with a point total of 4802.
The men's team will look to roll over their success from the indoor season into their outdoor season with returning athletes who have competed at a high level before, while also relying on a strong group of underclassmen to complement these returning athletes.
Women's Last Time Out & Preview
The women's team was led by Makenna Skoczylas and Ariana Baker in the Pole Vault at the WAC Indoor Championships with Makenna finishing fourth and having a jump of 12'04.75" and Ariana finishing ninth with a jump of 11'10.75". Ariana and Makenna both rank first and second overall respectively in the SUU record book for outdoor Pole Vault with Ariana's and Makenna's top jump being 12'02.50", which were both set last year. They will look to continue their success from the indoor season into the outdoor season.
Savannah Nielson and Chloe Bingham each had top-five finishes. Savannah came in fifth in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.61, While Chloe came in fourth in the high jump with a leap of 5'05.25".
Melissa Crane finished third in the pentathlon's 60-meter hurdles race with a time of 8.93. She would end up finishing ninth overall in the pentathlon with a point total of 3208.
Ajia Hughes, who has been very successful for the Thunderbirds the last couple of years will be redshirting this season.
Just like the men's team, the women's team will have returning athletes and will also have a strong group of underclassmen to complement those returning athletes.
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