PROVO -- The BYU men's and women's track teams are traveling to Weber State University to participate in the Wildcat Outdoor Open on Saturday. Some members of both teams will travel to Texas for the Texas Relays.
"The majority of our team will be competing at Weber State with the exception of Jennifer Grossarth, who will compete at the Texas Relay's," said BYU women's head coach Craig Poole. "We are looking at this as a preparing meet for next-weeks UCLA Invitational, and we think we will have some fairly good marks this weekend."
Last week the men's and women's teams split, and the distance teams participated in the Stanford Invitational. The men had four athletes and the women had 10 athletes qualify for region.
"We had a big meet last week, so some of the athletes will just be training, but we will still have a good distance group at Weber," said BYU women's distance coach Patrick Shane. "This week many of the athletes will drop down in distance to work on speed. For instance, some of our 1500-meter runners will run in the 800 meters and our 800 meter runners will run the 400."
The Cougars saw some good improvements in the field events last week. The javelin has been a bright spot for the women, as they have seen steady improvement and three regional-qualifying marks.
"I expect to see some solid performances," said BYU women's throws coach Dick Legas. "Tiffany has been really consistent, so I wouldn't be surprised if she had a really good meet."
The men's team has 15 regional qualifiers so far and has many more that are expected to break into the region ranks.
"The weather should be great and we will see a lot of the same teams," said BYU men's head coach Mark Robison. "We had some people that were close last week [to reaching region marks]. We will have good competition. Most of the athletes going to Texas have already qualified."
The men's distance team will also be giving some of the long distance runners a break this weekend, but some will be competing in the shorter races. Josh Rohatinsky will be making his first appearance of the outdoor season in the 1500 meters. Rohatinsky sat out most of the indoor season rehabilitating from an injury and came out for the MWC championship meet to set a new meet record in the 5000 meters.
"Josh [Rohatinsky] will run in the 1500 as a tune-up for the 5000 meters he will compete in next week at Mount Sac," said BYU men's distance coach Ed Eyestone. "Kyle Perry will run in the 800 meters to work on his speed."