Made it Home

As you can see we know how to travel in style through the airports! We had a long layover in Dallas on Sunday morning so a few of the girls decided to go exploring and found a couple of carts for bags and to sit on. We made it back to SLC where the weather was much nicer and a lot more temperate. Hopefully, it will stay that way as Lucy prepares for the NCAA Finals in the next 10-11 days. She will run the semi final round on Wednesday afternoon in Eugene.

I'll keep you posted on events between now and then which includes a trip with Shayla to Boston where she will run in the New Balance Twilight Series as her final tune up race before the US National meet. She runs on Saturday evening.

Finally, check back in the next few days as I may have some new pictures of our outdoor track progress. It's now crunch time as the project is about to come together in full. It's a great time to part of Utah Track & Field. Go Utes!

Final Day in Austin

We had a couple of athletes finish ahead of where they were ranked entering this meet today. True freshman Anneli Stahl finished 31st (entered ranked 37th) with a throw of 175-4 in the hammer.

Junior Alyssa Abbott was in the mix for one of the 12 qualifying spots before finishing 16th overall (4:26). She was ranked 25th in the West Region prior to this meet. For Alyssa to advance she would have had to have run a three second personal best on a hot and muggy evening. It just wasn't meant to be her day.

Sophomore Langley Iverson struggle with her approach and finished in a tie for 41st overall with a clearance of 5-4 in the high jump. This event was interrupted by a lightning delay just prior to the original start time.

Senior Sarah Grimm finished 20th overall in the hammer throw and just missed qualifying for the finals (required finishing in the top 16). This one is especially tough because Sarah has worked so hard and developed into one of the best hammer throwers in the country. She was an NCAA finals qualifier last year, so not getting back to that level again is disappointing. However, she will continue to train and compete at the US National meet in June.

Today just wasn't our day. That happens. Unfortunately for us...it occured today. Part of competing at this level is dealing with a few disappointments along the way. You can't win every time. You can't set a PR every time. We will persevere, learn from our mistakes, and be better because of today. All of these kids are big time competitors and are already looking forward to their next opportunity.

Overall, it was a very good meet. We have five underclassmen with at least one year of NCAA meet experience!!! That is awesome!!!

Back to SLC on Sunday. Off to Eugene a week from Monday with Lucy!!!

Yates Advances

Sophomore Lucy Yates didn't leave much room to spare (.04 seconds) but she hung on to third place in her heat and advanced to the semifinals of the 800 meter run. That race and the finals will be held in Eugene, OR in two weeks. Yates stayed in the middle of the pack going through the first 400 meters at a pedestrian pace (:63). She moved up right on the leaders with 200 to go and then made a huge move around the turn to take the lead. However, the pack of three fought back which left Lucy in third with 50 meters to go. She managed to hold off the fourth place runner and punch her ticket (and mine:) to Eugene.

Hopefully, Lucy will be joined by several teammates who have their event finals tomorrow. It was an exciting race and she did a great job to fight through the finish line. Get ready to cheer on our final four competitors tomorrow. Sarah Grimm and Anneli Stahl throw the hammer at 3pm. Langley Iverson will compete in the high jump at 4pm. Alyssa Abbott will finish out the meet at 6:45pm in the 1500 meter race.

Excellent day for the Utes!!!!

Survive and Advance...

It's an old cliche, but it's what championship events are all about. The first round of the NCAA outdoor championships is no exception. In the process a school record went down and two advance to the quarterfinals.

Lucy Yates ran 2:06.21 to break the school record in the 800 meter run. She ran the second fasted time overall in the preliminary round. The old school record was 2:06.67 set by Nellie Hammons in 2004. She will be competing on Friday at 6:45pm local time for a spot in the semi finals to be held in two weeks in Eugene, OR.

Junior Alyssa Abbott ran a very controlled race to finish third in her heat of the 1500 meters (4:24.43) and advance easily to the quarterfinal round on Saturday evening at 6:45 CDT.

Senior Chelsey Kaplar closed out her Utah career by finishing 36th overall in the 400 hurdles (1:01.36). That time wasn't good enough to advance but I thought she represented herself well. She has had an outstanding career and will be greatly missed in many capacities as she was more than just an outstanding athlete. She was a very good student and a great teammate. It will be nice to have her around helping out next year as she finishes her degree.

A pair of freshmen competed at the NCAA meet for the first time. Nikkie Rudder finished 37th overall in the shot put (44-8) and Amanda Mergaert was 31st in the 800 meter run (2:09.82). To qualify for this meet as a freshman is an amazing achievement and the experience they now have will be invaluable for the future.

Lucy is our only competitor tomorrow. Saturday we have four more athletes in three events. It's only going to get tougher, but we will be ready to go.

What We Know About Austin...

1. Coach Kepler about the 90+ degree temps and 35% humidity--"Dang, it's hot!" Local--"Wait until the humidity kicks in".
2. Anything BBQ or TexMex has been very good so far.
3. Dunkin Donuts on Coach Kepler's Iphone is really River City coffee.
4. The Austin-Bergstrom airport is open at 4am (Coach Kuusela and his group were delayed due to poor weather in Denver and arrived early this morning).
5. Flotrack calls Austin home. We visited the headquarters courtesy of Ryan, Mark, and the crew. Thanks guys...we had a great time.
6. It's not flat except for Town Lake which is a great place to run.
7. Austin HS track is not a great place to run during school hours (we were asked to leave this morning while warming up for a workout).
8. The view south from the track to downtown is very nice. (see pic)

We still have three more days to find out more about this place. Hopefully, we'll find out that it's a great place to compete and advance.

We Have Arrived!

Wtih only a minor delay on our flight out of SLC we made it to Austin for the First Round of the NCAA Championships at the West regional site late last night. There were several teams with similar flight plans as the airport was pretty busy for 10pm on a Tuesday evening.

Today is a practice day along with a coaches meeting. All of the competition begins on Thursday. We will have five women competing. Freshman Nikkie Rudder gets us going at 1PM in the shot put. At 4PM senior Chelsey Kaplar competes in the first round of the 400m hurdles (Coach Bockman says she's never looked better in practice). Junior Alyssa Abbott qualified in two events (1500 and 5K) however, we elected to only run her in the 1500 at 5PM. (Excellent choice considering the weather here is 90+ and humid everyday). Our day wraps up with sophomore Lucy Yates and freshman Amanda Mergaert competing in the 800 meter race at 8PM. (Mergaert was also a two event qualifier as she made it in the 1500 as well). All times are locat (CDT) time.

Our other three athletes (Sarah Grimm, Anneli Stahl, and Langley Iverson) compete on Saturday in their events. They will be flying in tonight with Coach Kuusela. Kudos to to the "Little Guy" for finding a nice hotel close to campus and the track.

Off for a run with the distance girls.....they want to get their premeet in before it really gets hot!

Extra Smart!

3.250 and 3.124...no this isn't a math equation. It is the Spring GPA's of the Utah women's cross country and track & field teams. Very solid numbers considering the amount of travel our team does. Maybe the more impressive number is 25. That is the number of student athletes on our team with a 3.0 GPA or above for this past semester. As a coach it is hard to ask for more out your team. Between a highly successful season that included almost 200 personal best performances, four school records, several conference champions, and eight NCAA qualifiers we also did a great job in the classroom. Another proud moment for our program!!!

Conference Accolades

Sorry for the delay in posting my post conference report. Overall, we had a very good meet with numerous lifetime bests and seasons bests. We had seven athletes earn all conference honors in five events, including one event champion (Alyssa Abbott-1500m). It was a total team effort as we scored in all but three events that we entered. We scored 70 points for the second year in a row at the outdoor conference meet which had never been done in the 11 years we've been part of the Mountain West Conference. Of course, the entire league has improved in that time as well. The total number of athletes qualifying for the First Round of the NCAA championships is the highest it's ever been from our league which makes it one of the top 5-6 leagues in the country!!! Do well in our league and your likely going to be one of the best athletes in your event(s) in the entire country. Now that is exciting.

On a side note...more exciting news as the lights at our new outdoor facility are now in place. The track surfacing and turf field will are only a few weeks away. FINALLY!!!! I'll try to get some pictures of the track in it's latest state soon.

We are off to the First Round of the NCAA's next Tuesday with eight athletes in six events. More to come from Austin, TX next week.

Day 3

Friday brought less than ideal competition conditions with blustery winds (30-40mph) that affected every event. Fortunately, our team handled the conditions well and we qualified athletes for the finals in almost every event on Saturday. We currently sit in eighth in the team standings with 13 points. However, this is pretty close to what I figured we would have at this point. Senior Sarah Grimm was the runner up in the hammer throw. After winning last year I know she was disappointed not to defend her title, but she fought through a tough day technically to get us 8 big points. True freshman Theresa Waybright was the other "bright" spot as she cleared 12-3 in the pole vault to get eighth place. She was ranked 11th entering the event so that was a big step forward.

The hurdling Kaplar sisters each won their heats to advance to their respective finals in the long and short hurdle events. Sophomore Lucy Yates redeemed herself from a year ago when she failed to qualify for the finals of the 800 meter run with a perfectly executed prelim race to easily qualify. Two true freshmen (Lauryn McKay and Ashley Mosley) qualified for the finals of the 400m dash. Other event finals include: 4x100 and 4x400 relays, shot put (Nikkie Rudder), 1500 (Alyssa Abbott and Amanda Mergaert), 5K (Abbott), Javelin (Breanna Freestone), and High Jump (Langley Iverson)

Leroy is Fifth in Hep

Sophomore Bree Leroy finished her first MWC heptathlon with 4670 points which was good for 5th place overall. We knew the battle for 3rd through 5th would be very tight. Bree was only 39 points from fourth and 146 points from third. She will be the first to tell you that she left those points on the track today. More importantly (from my viewpoint) is she refuses to give excuses. This was her first conference outdoor meet and ultimately she tried to hard in a couple of events (javelin and 800m). It wasn't a lack of effort physically. She just tried to be too perfect. She will learn from this because she wants to improve and be an elite multi eventer in our league and nationally. In the grand scheme of things she had less than a perfect meet and still PR'd by roughly 400 points!!! She PR'd in three events and was just shy of her lifetime best mark in two other events.

As a team we are to a solid start, but the team race will be very close in terms of finishing in the upper half or the lower half of the league. It's all about who wants it more. It's all about who can relax and turn the pressure of this meet into opportunities for success. Most of that will take place mentally. Who can get to the start line without losing energy from thinking about the competition?

This team is close and believes in each other. They have to keep fighting for each other and competing for every point in order to reach individual and team goals. That will be our focus over the next two days.

First Day PR

The conference meet is underway with the multi event. Day one of the heptathlon was a great start for us and Bree had a first day personal best score of 3005 points. 14.79 in the 100 hurdles, 5'5 3/4 in the HJ, 33-8 3/4 in the shot, and 26.42 in the 200m dash. Day two brings the long jump, javelin, and 800m. She is currently 3rd, only 12 points out of second. That is about as good as we could have hoped for after day one.

The trip with the remainder of the group was smooth today. Everyone had a good workout at the track. Hopefully, the weather will continue to be nice and we can get some great results. Check back for more results in the coming days.

Conference is Here!

If this week as a track athlete or coach doesn't get you excited then you probably don't have a pulse or have never competed in a sport like track & field. This is one of those few weeks each year where we find out what it means to compete under pressure and perform as well as we can regardless of the conditions or competition. No one cares about sprained ankles, skinned knees, or tight triceps. This meet is simply about beating people. Times and distances don't matter. All the hours of practice in the wind and rain, the sun, the snow, and other elements is now put to the test. We will succeed or we won't, but regardless we will have done it together as a team. We will fight for every point and every place we can grab. This is the beauty of a conference meet. It's not about where your ranked going into a competition. It's about controlling the things you can control, ignoring the things you can't, and being tough. It's about bleeding confidence, not about how you feel on a given day. It's about being surprised by nothing and respecting everyone. Finally, it's about seeing this moment as an opportunity to succeed, reach goals, and have fun! Welcome to conference!

The multi event begins tomorrow. Sophomore Bree Leroy (pictured) gets things started for us. The rest of our events take place on Fri-Sat. Keep up with Bree and the rest of our team on Coach Bockman's twitter and here with my blog.

www.twitter.com/utah_trackfield

Rudder Lauches Bomb!!!

Freshman Nikkie Rudder got tired of throwing the shot put 45 ft so she figured a cold, windy night at Weber State was a good time to skip the 46's and throw 47-7 to win the shot put. Almost a two foot PR with several family members in attendance is always a good thing. I'm just happy I got to see the third best throw in school history. With the vertical jumps and track events done I was able to sneak over to the shot put and see a few throws. A perfect "tune up" prior to the conference meet next week.

We had several other solid performances considering the less than ideal weather condition. Probably the thing that I am the most excited about and will talk about in our team meeting today is how "tough" we were. Nobody complained about the weather. We ran our line up as we entered it without anyone asking to be pulled from an event. That says a lot about the character and commitment of our young team and our veterans alike. Hopefully, we can take that toughness to the conference meet because we will need it.

Freshmen Keep on Runnin' Fast!

The best performances from our other meets (Oregon, Irvine, and Stanford) this weekend were:

At Oregon senior Sarah Grimm placed third (192-0).

At Stanford freshmen Amanda Mergaert ran the second fastest 800 meter time in school history (2:07.99) to win her heat.

Volunteer assistant, Shayla Houlihan competed in the 5K at Stanford and won her heat in a personal best time of 15:56.54. That time is 2:05 better than her previous PB which she ran five years ago.

We have one final regular season meet (Wildcat Tune-up) at Weber State on Wednesday evening before we prepare for the Mountain West Conference Championships on May 12-15.