SUU campus briefs

INDOOR TRACK AND FIELD: Southern Utah's track and field teams will head to Fargo, N.D., this weekend in pursuit of conference championships as the Thunderbirds compete at the 2010 Summit League Indoor Track & Field Championships.

"This is the meet that we have worked towards all year," head coach Eric Houle said. "North Dakota State will be the team to beat on both sides, but we hope to cut into some points and make some improvement over last year."

Southern Utah finished second and fifth on the men's and women's side, respectively, in 2009, but look to make a charge this year with several of the top times and marks in the league this season.

Included among the conference leaders are Cameron Levins (mile, 3:59.80), Carlos Valle (shot put, 53-6.25), Christina Day (400 meters, 54.93) and Sharla Manuele (3,000 meters, 9:25.21, and mile, 4:45.94).

Southern Utah athletes have also made a run on the record books this season, breaking two records on the men's side in the mile (Levins) and in the indoor heptathlon (Wade Nielson, 4,832). The women have also rewritten the all-time marks with new school records in the 60 meters (Shaye Maurer, 7.70), 60-meter hurdles (Maurer, 8.59), 400 meters (Day), mile (Manuele) and 3,000 meters (Manuele).

The meet will begin on Sunday morning with the multi events, with the brunt of the action taking place on Monday with individual and team champions being crowned following the men's 4x400-meter relay.

GYMNASTICS: Southern Utah's Elise Wheeler captured her seventh consecutive all-around title of the season, breaking the school record with a 39.550 performance, but a pair of falls on bars made all the difference as the T-Birds dropped a 196.100-195.425 decision to the Boise State Broncos on Friday night at Cedar City.

"The difference tonight was the way Boise State recovered from falls on events and we weren't able to match that," head coach Scott Bauman said after the meet. "We scored a season best tonight, but we know that it wasn't our best effort. We know we can do better and we need to start hitting our routines every night to be able to move to the next level."

Southern Utah got off to a great start, tying the school-record on vault with a 49.275 as Wheeler led the way with a 9.900. She was followed by Melissa Johnson (9.875), Bailey Baker (9.850), Lindsey Schultz (9.850) and Caitlin Kennedy with a 9.800 to round out the team score. The performance on vault left the Thunderbirds with a three-tenths advantage over the Broncos as BSU scored a 48.925 on bars.