State athletes on track

A number of Utah collegian track and field athletes will pack their bags for Sacramento in two weeks as a result of their performances at the NCAA West Regional Track and Field Championships Saturday in Eugene, Ore.

The two-day meet was the final chance to nail down a spot in the NCAA Championship meet to be held in Sacramento June 6-9. Representatives from each of the Beehive State's big-five Division I athletic programs did just that by finishing in the top five of their respective events, while a handful of others will have to wait until the at-large bids are announced to learn their fate.

In the team scoring, Southern California's men racked up 83 points to take first place. Brigham Young University's men finished with 38.5 points in ninth place, with Utah State scoring 20 for 15th place.

For the women, Arizona State topped the field with 94 points. BYU was sixth with 48.5 points, with Weber State coming in 11th with 22 points.

"It was a much better day. We had surprises where we did really well, where yesterday there were surprises where we didn't do very well," said BYU men's coach Mark Robison. "The teams (from Utah) did pretty well. It turned out to be a pretty good day for the state."

The Cougar men scored big in some of their strongest events Saturday, as David Pendergrass finished third in the high jump, clearing 7 feet, 1 inch.

Bryce Bergen and Ammon Dahl also scored for BYU in the event, with junior Chandler Goodwin making a second-consecutive nationals trip with his fifth-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (8:49.51).

"The good thing is we've got seven athletes going to nationals, and I think everybody's got a chance to place," Robison said. "We could score almost as many points at nationals as we did at regionals."

BYU's women were led once again by the distance events, with Heidi Magill's second-place run in the 1,500-meter run (4:21.14). Junior Kassi Andersen was third in the steeplechase and Michelle Lindsay Turner once again moved on to nationals with a fifth-place finish in the 800-meter run (2:07.17).

Senior Jennifer Grossarth was the first of five Utahns to score in the 400-meter hurdles, finishing third (57.58), and BYU's Kelly Furr was second in the pole vault (13-07.75).

In the women's 400 hurdles, Utah's nationals-bound Amanda Feight finished fifth (58.67), with teammate Chelsea Shapard seventh.

The Aggies will send a strong contingent to nationals, as their sprint and hurdle crews came through Saturday. Sprinter DJ Smith snagged the victory in the 100-meter dash in a time of 10.39 seconds, the win coming in a race that saw first through fifth place separated by just 0.08 seconds. Southern Utah's Dewayne Lewis was fourth in 10.45 seconds.