PROVO-The BYU men's track and field team peformed well in its first track meet of the season, the BYU Invitational, which took place on Friday and Saturday at the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo.
“This meet is almost like an inter-squad meet and helps us gauge where everyone is at coming back from the break,” men's head coach Mark Robison said. “Overall, I was very pleased with the meet results. We had some very good performances.”
Using only two-thirds of his approach, all-American sophomore Victor Weirich had an amazing first place performance in the pole vault posting an impressive 5.40m (17’-08.50). Weirich beat his closest opponent by 0.2m.
The Cougars also had a good showing in the high jump with sophomore Dakota John taking first with a jump of 2.14m (7-00.25), nearly two inches over his personal record. Russell Nielson took second behind John, jumping 2.14m (6-08.75).
The heptathlon participates, although BYU was the only team competing, also saw great finishes from Joshua Weirich, who took first with 4979 points, and Kevin Nielsen, who took second with 4958 points.
Ryan Jones and Jared Ward performed well in the one miles race, taking second and third with times of 4:11.13 and 4:12.81 respectively and BYU swept the top three of the 400m race, with freshman Shaquille Walker taking first (47.96) and senior Christ Carter and Junior Rhyan Atrice taking second and third, with times of 48:27 and 48:44 respectively.
Both the men’s and women’s teams will head to Boise next weekend to participate in the Boise State Invitational on Jan. 13 and 14 in Nampa, Idaho.