Indoor track & field at 2019 MPSF Championships (Friday & Sat., 2/22-23)

[AztecBuff]

Best wishes to the track and field teams as they compete in Seattle starting Friday. Get those NCAA Championship qualifying marks, and bring some BIG conference championship points back to Boulder!

Preview -


Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/2/20/track-and-field-buffaloes-tuned-up-for-mpsf-championshps.aspx

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By: Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID
BOULDER – The University of Colorado track and field program is tuned up and ready for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Indoor Track and Field Championship that begins this Friday in Seattle, Wash.

The Buffaloes will travel 17 women and 15 men to the championships with many prepped to post huge personal bests, go after school records and NCAA qualifying marks.

One of the most exciting events this weekend will come in the men's mile when Joe Klecker will line up to run 1609 meters at sea level for the first time. Klecker, who is fourth in the nation in the 3,000 and fifth in the 5,000, will run the mile against some of the best competition in the nation. There are 11 marks in the MPSF under the 4-minute mile mark, only one of which was not run on the Dempsey track. The MPSF has four individuals on the bubble with rankings between 14 and 20 in the nation, with the fastest time in the conference from Carlos Villareal from Arizona at 3:57.27.

Klecker has never run a mile all out at sea level but is the seventh-fastest miler in school history at 4:01.72, a mark run in Boulder two years ago. That mark converts to 3:55.76 which is nearly three seconds faster than the school record of 3:58.13 which was set by Jake Hurysz in 2015. The top four miles in school history and the only marks under the 4-minute barrier all came on the Dempsey track.

The other huge events this weekend all have NCAA implications. There are seven marks that Colorado has individuals on the bubble for qualifying for nationals or has a chance to move into qualifying this weekend. The largest event with implications to NCAA qualifying is the 3,000 on both the men and women's side. Makena Morley is ranked 13th in the 3,000 and should be safe but will be trying to better that mark for certainty. She will also be helping Kaitlyn Benner who is 19th in the rankings try and move into qualifying. The 16th-best mark in the nation is owned by Tabor Scholl at 9:07.07. For the men, John Dressel is already in the top-10 in the 5,000 but will try his luck at the 3,000 this weekend.

The other bubble events are the women's pentathlon, women's 400 and women's 4x400 meter relay. Scholl is ranked 12th in the mile but will run this weekend with hopes to improve on that mark. Gabby Scott is 18th in the nation in the women's 400 at 53.22 seconds. The 16th-best mark right now is 53.12, but with all the conference championships the senior will be looking to break 53-seconds and move into qualifying. She is fourth in the event in the MPSF. Scott will also be a part of the second-ranked MPSF 4x400 women's team. Scott, Valerie Welch, Dani Johnson and Eriana Henderson are 16th in the nation right now but will need to improve on their school record once again if they hope to qualify.

The final mark to watch will come in the women's pentathlon. Maja Wichhart-Donzo and Michaela Wenning are ranked 1-2 in the MPSF with Wichhart-Donzo ranked 15th in the nation currently. The senior will be aiming to break not only the 4,000-point barrier but also the school record of 4,071 points in hopes to stay in qualifying position.
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Action begins for Colorado on Friday at 1 p.m. (MT) with Elisa Grandemange and Mariah Walker throwing the weight throw. Fans with a FloTrack subscription can watch all the events with live results available here. Results will be updated throughout the competition on this page.

Time (MT)	Event	Athlete	Result	Place
Friday
1:00 PM	Women's Weight Throw	Elisa Grandemange
		Mariah Walker
1:15 PM	Women's Pentathlon	Drianna Mustin
		Maja Wichhart-Donzo
		Kylee Harr
		Michaela Wenning
3:00 PM	Men's Heptathlon	Josh Farmer
		Davis Butte
5:30 PM	Women's 60 Hurdle Prelims	Dani Johnson
		Eriana Henderson
		Valerie Welch
6:15 PM	Women's Long Jump	Eriana Henderson
		Valerie Welch
6:15 PM	Men's Long Jump	Gunner Rigsby
6:15 PM	Men's Weight Throw	Brock Knechtel
		Caleb Penner
6:45 PM	Women's 5,000	Mackenzie Caldwell
		Tayler Tuttle
7:05 PM	Men's 5,000	Ethan Gonzales
8:05 PM	Men's 200	Jon Maas
		Duane McClurkin Jr.
8:30 PM	Women's Distance Medley Relay	Karina Mann, Dani Johnson, Elissa Mann, Tabor Scholl
Saturday
11:00 AM	Women's High Jump	Michaela Wenning
11:30 AM	Women's Shot Put	Mariah Walker
11:30 AM	Men's Heptathlon	Josh Farmer
		Davis Butte
12:10 PM	Women's Mile	Tabor Scholl
12:40 PM	Men's Mile	Joe Klecker
12:50 PM	Women's 400	Gabby Scott
1:00 PM	Men's High Jump	Jeremy Cody
1:30 PM	Men's 400	Jon Maas
		Duane McClurkin Jr.
		Nathan Hoy
		Kendal Smith
2:05 PM	Women's 800	Karina Mann
		Elissa Mann
2:30 PM	Men's 800	Josh Ramos
3:00 PM	Women's 3000	Makena Morley
		Kaitlyn Benner
2:30 PM	Men's Triple Jump	Gunner Rigsby
3:35 PM	Men's 3000	John Dressel
4:00 PM	Women's 4x400 Relay	Valerie Welch, Dani Johnson, Eriana Henderson, Gabby Scott
4:25 PM	Men's 4x400 Relay	Aaron McCoy, Kendal Smith, Jon Maas, Duane McClurkin Jr.

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

"
Note- Adjusted individual event times if needed so they corresponded with final start times established after the above article was released. Later, I needed to re-correct times, as I think I had been looking at the wrong year's schedule.
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Event homepage - https://admin.gohuskies.com/news/20...wraps-with-mpsf-championships.aspx?path=track

Full event schedule (Edit- replaced with now available final schedule Preliminary as I type this) - https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.si.../2019/2/4/2019_MPSF_ITF_Event_Schedule_2_.pdf

Heat sheets - https://gohuskies.com/documents/2019/2/21/2019_MPSF_Championship_Heat_Sheets_v_2.pdf

Live Video (Premium Flotrack subscription only) - https://www.flotrack.org/live/2083-mpsf-championships/signup

Live results - https://live.pntfo.com/meets/1914/scoreboard

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Edit- As I have in earlier threads, Wanted to copy the info for how athletes qualify for the NCAA Indoor T & F Championships. Unlike outdoors, there are no regional championships run to choose who advances. It's merely-

• Individually, it's just the athletes who earn the top 16 times or marks during the qualifying period who accept the invitation to go the championships for that event.
• For relays, it's the teams with the top 12 times who accept a bid.
• Note that there are adjustments made for (1) altitude and (2) facility rating.
• Full explanation of qualifying is at http://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/ncaa-championship-qualifying-criteria#d1ITF .

To keep up with how individual Buffs are placed to qualify, I believe the official resource for times are-

• Women's - https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2324.html?gender=f
• Men's - https://www.tfrrs.org/lists/2324.html?gender=m

 

[AztecBuff]

Some results coming in, with some nice ones for the women so far:

1) Looks like Tayler Tuttle continues her great senior season (already featuring All-American honors in cross country) with the win in the women's 5,000 meters, while another senior, Mackenzie Caldwell, also earns nice points with her 4th place finish.

2) Think they might have missed their point goals some (I'd read something saying they were hoping to get to or close to 4,000), but a couple Buffs get top 5 finishes in the women's pentathlon, with Maja Wichhart-Donzo (3,793 points) finishing in 3rd and Michaela Wenning (3,733) in 5th.

 

[AztecBuff]

Sprinter U!!!! Congrats to senior Duane McClurkin Jr. on his 200M win!



And, again congrats to Ms. Tuttle.

 

[AztecBuff]

The Buff women earn 4 more points with a 5th place finish in the Distance Medley Relay.

With all the sprints, hurdles and field events remaining tomorrow (generally not Buff strengths at this point), assume the Buffs won't be able to hold their place, but after day 1, they're narrowly in 2nd on the women's side with 29 points. (USC leading with 31 points, Washington (28), Stanford (26) and Oregon (24) right on the Buffs' heels.)

 

[AztecBuff]

Article on today's action-



Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/2/22/track-and-field-colorado-takes-home-pair-of-mpsf-titles.aspx

"
By: Shaun Wicen, Assistant SID
SEATTLE, Wash. – After the first day of competition, the University of Colorado track and field program took home a pair of Mountain Pacific Sports Federation individual titles in the women's 5,000 by Tayler Tuttle and men's 200 by Duane McClurkin Jr. in Seattle, Wash., Friday evening.

Tuttle took home the first title for the Buffaloes. The junior held onto the leader for 4,700 meters of the race before taking the lead and running away with the title at 16:29.60. She let Oregon's Philippa Bowden pace the majority of the race after a group of eight broke off of the pack of 24 after a mile. In the final mile it was a three woman race with Bowden, Tuttle and Christina Rice of UCLA.

"I was very pleased with how Tayler chose to run a race, how it unfolded and she responded to it and closed very well," said head coach Mark Wetmore. "Very pleased for her."

With the win, Colorado defended the MPSF women's 5,000 title for Colorado for the past four years. Kaitlyn Benner won it in 2015, followed by Mackenzie Caldwell in 2016 and Erin Clark last year.

McClurkin Jr. took the men's title in the 200 in the first heat of 12, taking the lead at the turn and widening the gap over the final 60 meters. His time of 21.09 is a new personal best and betters his fourth-best mark in school history. He joins Joe Morris as the only Buffaloes to win the 200 indoor conference title.

"Duane had a very nice race in the 200," said Wetmore. "I think that's his personal best and a win is always good. This is not known as a particularly fast track, so his performance may be a little better than it seems just looking at the clock. He's got the 400 coming tomorrow and a relay, I'm sure he will be a major contributor on the relay and probably get us some individual points in the 400 as well."
...

"I would imagine Gabby will give us some points," said Wetmore on tomorrow. "I think we will get some good points in the 3,000. We will have to take a hard look at Tabor Scholl, she's got a pretty sore leg that held her up tonight in the distance medley, and given that she is high on the NCAA list it might be imprudent for us to put her on the track tomorrow. We will get some more points along the way and the men, I hope will get a few more because we are not sitting wonderfully tonight, but Joe and John will help us some."

After the conclusion of the field events, USC women jumped Colorado for the team score lead by two points. The Trojans have 31 points while Colorado has 29. The men's team has 10 points while UCLA had a large lead at 43 points

The Buffaloes begin tomorrow with Wenning in the women's high jump at 11 a.m. (MT). Fans with a FloTrack subscription can watch all the events with live results available here. Results will be updated throughout the competition on cubuffs.com.
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Full day one results - https://cubuffs.com/documents/2019/2/22//2019_MPSF_Championships_Day_One_Compiled.pdf

 

[AztecBuff]

A few great performances on the track already today:

• 2nd place finishes in the men's mile (junior Joe Klecker also joins the mythical track sub- 4:00 mile club) and women's 400M (senior Gabby Scott crushes her previous school record and may have an NCAA champs qualifying mark)!
• In the just completed men's 400M, 2 more Buffs earn points while they become the 2nd and 4th fastest indoors in Buff history as senior Duane McClurkin JR follows up his win yesterday in the 200M with a 3rd place finish and sophomore Aaron McCoy finishes in 6th.

 

[AztecBuff]

More points for the Buffs in the men's heptathlon, and a great sign for the future, as freshman Josh Farmer finishes in 4th.

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And, Gabby Scott's time still looking good to qualify for NCAA's.

 

[AztecBuff]

Nice 2nd and 8th place finishes in the women's 3K by Makena Morley and Kaitlyn Bennerm respectively. In addition to the great place finish, Ms. Morley also improved her season's best by a couple seconds, which moves her up a few spots in the NCAA season's best list, and will hopefully help insures she qualifies for the NCAA's in that** race. (**Don't know what might have happened in the various conference championships this weekend, but going in she also had a top 16 5K qualfiying time.)

 

[AztecBuff]

It's over in Seattle with both Buff teams earning points in the 4X400M relays (the traditional finale event at meets), with the women finishing in 2nd and men 5th in their races.

For the whole Championships -

• The women finished in 4th with 58 points, behind only Pac conference-mates USC (the convincing winner with 120 points), Stanford (67.5) and Oregon (61).
• The men finish in a tie with wsu for 8th with 38 points. (BYU won with 93 points.)

Congrats to all the athletes who competed and were happy/ content with their results. Hope those who qualified for NCAA's (scheduled for March 8th and 9th in Birmingham AL) get/ stay fully healthy and have good final training sessions over the coming days, and that the rest get ready for a great outdoor season!

 

[AztecBuff]

Article for today's events.



Direct link - https://cubuffs.com/news/2019/2/23/track-and-field-scott-blazes-into-ncaa-in-final-day-of-mpsf.aspx

"
SEATTLE – Gabby Scott scratched another second off of her school record in the women's 400-meter dash in the final day of competition at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Championships here Saturday.

Scott entered the meet on the outside looking in for the NCAA Championships, having run the fastest 400 in school history at 53.22 in Arkansas earlier this month. She was ranked 18th in the nation before today and let USC's Kyra Constantine and Bailey Lear get out quick in the first 200 meters of the race. With 100 meters to go, Scott edged Lear out off the final turn and quickly jumped on the shoulder of Constantine who closed the race out and ran the nation's fastest time of 52.07. Scott's time of 52.34 moves her to fourth in the nation and qualifies her for the NCAA Championships.

"I knew I had to get out hard being on the outside," said Scott. "Then it was just about adjusting properly and finishing strong. I was in shock looking at the time knowing that not only did I qualify for nationals, but I would be ranked top-seven in the nation. I came into the weekend on a mission and accomplished it. That's the best feeling."

Scott is now the first Colorado women's sprinter to make it the NCAA Indoor National Championships since Hannah Cooper made it in the hurdles in 2002. She joins Leona Russell in 1996 as the only Colorado woman to qualify for the 400-meters indoor or outdoor. The last time a Buffalo ran a 400 at the national level was James Davis in the 1999 indoor and outdoor seasons.

"I think that was probably the performance of the weekend," said head coach Mark Wetmore on Scott. "Big mark, not a huge surprise but that's a big improvement on a track that is not known for being a good sprinting track. Really good mark for her and she is off to Birmingham."

The other huge mark of the day came in the men's mile when Joe Klecker placed second in a time of 3:58.51. The junior let the lead pack go for the first half of the race, then took the lead and led for all but the final straight-away when he was caught by William Paulson of Arizona State. Klecker's mark is second in school history and qualifies him for the NCAA championships. He is now top-sixteen in the nation in three events for the championships in two weeks.

"Joe wanted to go and get a legitimate sea-level mile time, he has only ever run miles up at our place," said Wetmore. "He wanted a real-life sub-four instead of a converted elevation mark. The early leader didn't help for long and pretty soon Joe was on his own out there grinding it out. One guy out-gunned him in the last straight away, but 3:58.4 is the second-fastest time in Colorado and there has been a lot of great distance runners here. He has had a wonderful winter, mile, 3,000, 5,000 and a year to go still."

The most points for the Colorado men's team came in the men's 400-meter dash. Duane McClurkin ran a new personal best 46.86 to finish third overall, while Aaron McCoy won the third heat in a time of 47.18 to move to fourth in school history and sixth in the meet. Jon Maas was right on the edge of scoring at ninth with a time of 47.69.

"Duane McClurkin scored in three events if I'm not mistaken," added Wetmore. "He is the high-point scorer on the men's team and a big chunk of the men's total. Duane had his best weekend ever for us."

The women's 3,000 picked up the most points for Colorado as it was a tight race with huge NCAA qualifying implications on the line. Makena Morley came into the race ranked 15th in the nation. She held onto the lead pack and went at 1,200 meters to lead the race through the mile at 4:45. She was passed by winner Fiona O'Keefe of Stanford later in the race and things got interesting with her and Washington's Lilli Burdon fighting in the top-three with only a couple of places to go in qualifying. Morley held off Burdon to move to around 10th on the NCAA list at 9:02.47, while O'Keefe set a new MPSF record at 8:58.58. All three women qualified for the NCAA tournament.

Also in that race, Kaitlyn Benner tried to hold onto the lead pack but dropped to around 10th with the fast pace early. She held on to run 9:09.25 and finished eighth.

In the women's field events, Mariah Walker had an enormous season best in the women's shot put to finish fifth overall. The senior threw 15.57m, nearly 60 centimeters better than she had this season.

In the men's field events, Josh Farmer finished fourth overall in the men's heptathlon with a lifetime best of 5,140. He finished the first day in fourth and stayed in that position through the rest of the series.

Also for Colorado, John Dressel ran 7:54.46 in the men's 3,000 to finish seventh overall.

In the final event of the meet, the women's 4x400 relay team of Valerie Welch, Dani Johnson, Eriana Henderson and Scott made a huge pass against Arizona to finish second behind USC while running 3:38.24. The men's team of Maas, McCoy, Kendal Smith and McClurkin Jr. came together to run 3:12.28 to win their heat and finish fifth overall.

The women's team finished fourth overall with 58 points while USC ran away with the meet with 120 points. The men finished eighth overall with 38 points. BYU won the men's title with 93 points.

"I came into the weekend thinking we would get about 40 points," said Wetmore. "I think we ended up with 58. The difference was probably in the points we got in the sprints, but the multis helped and distance runners did their normal thing and we ended up a little higher than I expected."

Colorado looks to have qualified five or more athletes for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships that begin March 8th in Birmingham, Alabama.
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Full results - https://cubuffs.com/documents/2019/2/23//2019_MPSF_Championships_Compiled.pdf

Heptathlon results - https://cubuffs.com/documents/2019/2/23//2019_MPSF_Championships_Heptathlon_Grid.pdf