SPOKANE, Wash. – The Montana Tech track & field teams traveled to Spokane for the Whitworth Peace Meet hosted by Whitworth University. The field was large with 17 teams from all three NCAA levels along with NAIA institutions and junior colleges.
"We try to do at least one overnight trip per season for a chance to see teams we don't normally compete against as well as to chase better weather and sea level for our distance runners," said head coach
Zach Kughn. "This Spokane trip checked a couple of those boxes. It definitely provided some great competition at sea level, but it was a long cold rainy day. We still managed to compete very well and overall, I think it was definitely worth the trip. Most of the conference was competing in Great Falls this weekend, but I think it was worth the effort to go see some D1's, D3's, and NAIA's that we don't normally see."
Edwin Kipainoi won the 10000 meter race finishing in a time of 31:11.39. Kipainoi made the NAIA B standard and was one second off of the automatic qualifying A standard for the NAIA National Championship.
"It was an especially great day for our distance runners, they always respond well to going down to sea level and to having better competition. Almost everyone in that group PR'd.
Edwin Kipainoi ran almost the entire race by himself to easily hit the NAIA B standard."
Hailey Nielson finished fifth in the 5000 meters with a time of 18:44.30.
Morgan also finished seventh in the 3000 meter steeplechase with a time of 9:33.85, just missing the B standard by a second.
Justin Morgan took seventh in the 5000 meters with a time of 15:22.40. Both races were PRs for Morgan.
Carlin Manning finished in sixth place in the 3000 meter steeplechase with her best time in the event in 11:39.86 seconds.
"Our men's steeple squad came into this week ranked second in the NAIA with an average of 10:09. They lowered that to 9:57 with all of those guys dropping their times considerably. Justin narrowly missed the B standard, but had an 18 second PR.
Carlin Manning also had a great day in the women's steeple with a 25 second PR, nine seconds behind the national standard."
Holt Downey had PRs in both hurdle events. Downey finished sixth in the 110 meter hurdles in 15.95 seconds and eighth in the 400 meter hurdles in 1:02.21.
Jesse Mecham took fifth in the shot put with a mark of 14.81 meters and finished seventh in the hammer throw tossing 41.36 meters.
"
Jesse Mecham continues to throw well, he placed in the hammer and shot put."
Abby Clark won the high jump with a mark of 1.62 meters.
Naiya Beaudin finished fifth in the triple jump with a 15.97 meter mark.
Olleca Severson took fifth in the 100 meter hurdles and a PR 15.49 seconds.
Morgan McClernan took fourth in the 400 meter hurdles with a time of 59.41.
The Oredigger women took third in the 4x400 meter relay.
"We had a good day in hurdles for both genders and our women's 4x4 of
Emily Ratz,
Kamryn Comba,
Olleca Severson, and
Hadassah Wilson set the school record running in the dark to
close out the night on a high note for us."
The Trudnowski Open is up next for the Orediggers. The meet serves as the Frontier Conference Championships in multis with the women competing in the heptathlon and the men in the decathlon.
"Our multi event athletes are getting ready for their conference championship this Friday and Saturday in Helena. The rest of the team will compete Saturday in Helena as well. The multis are a big event for us, particularly our women's heptathlon so we look forward to racking up some big team points before the conference meet even starts."
