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OGDEN, Utah (April 24, 2017) - With just one week in April remaining and two more in the regular season, Big Sky track & field is beginning its final tuneup phase for the conference championships in Sacramento.
Last weekend, 10 Big Sky teams were active, with three competing in rivalry dual meets. In the Griz-Cat Dual, the Montana women and Montana State men prevailed in a tightly-contested meet. The Sac State men topped UC Davis in the Causeway Classic duals. Over the weekend, four new Big Sky all-time top ten marks were set.
Two of the new top-10 marks came from those rival duals. Sac State’s Darius Armstead became just the fifth league athlete ever to crack 53 feet in the triple jump. MSU’s Kyle Douglass moved into the top 10 on the discus list. Northern Arizona’s Matt Baxter moved into eighth with a time of 13:46.24 in the 5,000 at Stanford. WSU’s Tawnie Moore entered the top 10 in the 100 hurdles over the weekend as well.
All 12 teams are active this weekend, while four will be making their final appearance prior to the Big Sky meet.
Idaho State, NAU, Portland State and Southern Utah will have their last tuneups for conference. The other eight teams still have another meet remaining, but will likely not be at full strength as many athletes will begin tapering for Big Sky’s. Four teams will be in Irvine, while three more will be at BYU’s Robision Invitational. UM and MSU will continue to see more of each other in Missoula, while Eastern Washington and PSU will each stay in the northwest for the Oregon State High Performance Meet.
In the latest USTFCCCA regional rankings, 10 Big Sky teams sit in the top 15 of their respective region.
The league is in its first season without qualifying standards. Coaches will be able to fill rosters for the conference championships however they please within the roster limits of 26 indoors and 28 outdoors. The Big Sky Outdoor Championships in Sacramento, Calif., are about two weeks away on May 10-13.