EUGENE, Ore. – BYU track and field won a combined 13 events en route to both the men’s and women’s teams taking second place at the Pepsi Invitational on a windy and rainy Saturday.
“Despite soggy conditions, the team competed admirably well and showed that we can compete with some of the best teams in the Pac-12,” BYU head coach Ed Eyestone said. “The reason we were here wasn’t necessarily for time trials but to get some experience on the national track and compete as a team. They were announcing the team scores after each event and that gave our athletes the motivation to rise up to do the best they could.”
The Cougars competed against Oregon, Washington and Washington State at Hayward Field, the site of this year’s NCAA Outdoor Championships. Oregon scored the most points on both the men’s and women’s sides with 171 points and 185 points, respectively. The BYU men’s team scored 160 points to take second place while the women’s team scored 152 points to tie for second with Washington State.
The men’s 4x100 relay team, consisting of Rickey Fantroy Jr., Derek Sorensen, Abram Schaap and Clark Brown, clocked a season-best 40.70 to win the first race of the day. In the 100m, Brown ran a season-best 10.34 to take first place and Fantroy earned a career-record 10.71. Sorensen later competed in the 200m and took second with a time of 21.07.
Coach Eyestone was excited about the performances by the men’s and women’s hurdlers after his team won three of the four events. Scott Mecham and Max Scheible swept the men’s 400m hurdles for BYU with times of 52.25 and 53.29 while Brenna Porter ran a 58.83 to win the women’s 400m hurdles. Alyssa Dalton and Nicole Lord took the top two spots in the 100m hurdles but the times were not recorded because of malfunctions due to the weather.
Raul Rios cleared a career-record 5.15m in the pole vault but ultimately lost a five-round tiebreaker for first place to finish second. His mark puts him in contention to qualify for the NCAA West Prelims based on the average for regional qualifiers from the past five years.
Andrea Stapleton-Johnson and Marissa Appiah took first and second in the high jump with heights of 1.75m and 1.65m, respectively. Teammate Kassie Nagel won the shot put with a season-best 14.57m.
Connor McMillan and Rory Linkletter led the Cougars to another 1-2 sweep in the 3000m with times of 8:30.04 and 8:30.70, respectively. In the 3000m steeplechase, Clayson Shumway ran a career-best 8:46.69 to win the event and Porter Reddish came in third with a time of 9:04.69.
Olivia Hoj ran a 10:35.93 in her first career 3000m steeplechase to win the event and Anna Camp took first in the 1500m with a time of 4:23.88. Camp’s time is on the bubble of being a qualifying time for regionals based on the average qualifying times of recent years.
Abraham Alvarado debuted in his first 800m race of the season and won it with a time of 1:52.04. The women’s 4X400 relay team capped off the last event of the meet with a first-place finish and a season-best of 3:41.38. The team included Ellie Heiden-Quackenbush, Dalton, Porter and Cassidy Pinnock.
For the official results from the Pepsi Invitational, click here.
BYU track and field will compete next April 13-14 at the Mark Faldmo Invite in Logan, Utah, and the UCSD Triton Invitational in La Jolla, California.