UW track gets ready for MWC Championships

UW photo service

UW's Shaylee Babbitt, center, competes in the 100-meter hurdles during the recent Front Range Invitational.

Wyoming track and field looks to add more regional qualifiers

By Wyoming Sports.org

The University of Wyoming track and field team will open the Mountain West Conference Championships Wednesday in Fort Worth, Texas.

The meet, which will be hosted by TCU, will run through Saturday.

Competition begins Wednesday at noon with the heptathlon and decathlon events. The Cowboys are represented by decathlete, sophomore Jay Petsch, who currently ranks seventh in the MWC with 5,718 points that he accumulated at the Cougar Invite in April.

Thursday will bring the conclusion to the heptathlon and decathlon and the beginning of the men’s hammer throw. Competing in the hammer throw will be freshman Alan John, who has regionally qualified with a toss of 190-feet at the Front Range Invite in Laramie.

The women’s 10,000-meter run begins action on Friday. For the running events, most will be qualifying for Saturday’s finals, which begin at noon. A complete schedule of the events is available at http://www.themwc.com/.

“We look forward to having some young kids get some experience and exposure on the conference level,” UW head coach Don Yentes said. “They have been improving all year and we look for some of them to make some noise this weekend.”

UW has eight regional qualifiers so far this season -- four Cowboys and four Cowgirls.

Senior Kate Burton leads the way with her record-holding toss of 209-8 in the hammer throw. She is followed by fellow senior Gretchen Johnson, who qualified at the Stanford Invite earlier this April with time of 16 minutes, 35.98 seconds in the 5,000-meter run, which was also good for second best all-time in UW history. Junior thrower Courtney Gougler has qualified in the discus at 166-0, along with Shaylee Babbitt, who qualified in the 100-meter hurdles.

The Cowboys are led by sophomore John Alderson, who qualified in the triple jump, as he currently he sits in second place in the MWC and third place in the long jump. Alderson follows freshman Jeremiah James in the long jump, as James has qualified with his leap of 24-1. James will compete in the long, triple and high jump events this weekend. Along with John in the hammer throw, senior Vashone West qualified in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.38, good for fourth best in the MWC.

“Kate (Burton) and Gretchen (Johnson) have both been very big parts of this program for the past few years and will be sorely missed and hard to replace,” said Yentes.