John Blanchette: Vandals throwers playing tag

A track weekend hasn’t passed this spring without some school record falling in one of the area’s six college programs. But at the University of Idaho, it could develop into a game of tag.

And Marcus Mattox was “it” over the weekend.

The senior from Hermiston, Ore., upped the Vandal record in the men’s hammer throw in the first day of the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, Calif., his best effort taping out at 205 feet, 5 inches. Not that he expected it to last the weekend.

“It’ll probably be short-lived,” he said afterward, “since Matt hasn’t thrown yet.”

That would be Matt Wauters, who set the previous mark of 204-7 in 2006 and had a competitive best of 214-0 from his redshirt season a year ago. Wauters didn’t compete in Mattox’s section at Mt. SAC, but was scheduled to throw the next day at the Beach Invitational in Cerritos and the Mt. SAC invitational flight on Sunday.

Except that at Cerritos, Mattox pushed his record to 208-10 while Wauters threw 202-10. Then back at Mt. SAC, Wauters struggled in at 193-9.

Meanwhile, back in West Lafayette, Ind., teammate Russ Winger was winning three events at the Dave Rankin Invitational – including the hammer with a lifetime best of 200-9. That makes Idaho the first Inland Northwest school to have three 200-footers in the same season. Washington State had three throwers with 200-plus bests on its roster back in 1982, but not all had done it the same spring.

It could grow. Sophomore James Rogan reached 194-10 at the Cerritos meet, and junior Jake Boling has a 197-0 best from 2007.

Still, the consensus is that Wauters will wind up throwing the farthest.

“He’s kind of been throwing on a sprained ankle and that’s been tough,” said Idaho throws coach Julie Taylor. “He’s behind where he wants to be and I know he’s a little frustrated right now. He needs more reps and to get the ankle healthy – and to just keep persevering.”

Anna one, Anna two

Washington State will rest and change events with a number of its athletes at the Cougar Invitational in Pullman this Saturday, and that could include one of the team’s more pleasant surprises of 2008 – two-lapper Anna Layman.

A redshirt freshman, Layman’s lifetime best for 800 meters before this season – 2 minutes, 13.6 seconds – dated back to her sophomore year at Central Valley in Spokane. But at the outdoor opener in Sacramento last month, she chopped that to 2:08.31, and lowered it another .04 two weeks ago in Los Angeles.

“All through high school and here last year, it was one problem after another,” said WSU coach Rick Sloan. “It just seemed like every time we’d get her into a training cycle, she’d get injured. She had been in our camp in high school and we recognized her as a huge talent, but she could never train for an extended period.”

Sloan is still using “kid gloves,” having Layman do much of her work on a VersaClimber and in the swimming pool.

“We weren’t wrong – she is a huge talent,” he said. “And she’s a pretty tough competitor.”

By their Whits

Though they won by 15 points, the Whitworth Pirates didn’t have it easy in capturing their first Northwest Conference men’s title since 2001 last weekend in Newberg, Ore. They needed some little things to add up.

For instance, coach Toby Schwarz managed to get six points from two “wild card” entries – half-miler Tyler Alsin and thrower Alex Couette in the discus – who hadn’t reached conference qualifying standards in those events. The Pirates also got 12 points from hurdler Matthew Perry of Deer Park – including a second in the intermediates behind teammate Ben Spaun after entering the meet 17th on the NWC season list.

“He’s a full-blown ROTC guy who shows up at practice when he can,” Schwarz explained. “He missed a couple of meets because of it this year and only ran the 400 hurdles once. But he has ability – he ran a 50-second split when we threw him into a relay this year and he scored in the decathlon for us. So it wasn’t a surprise to me, but it was to everybody else on the planet.”

Bell lap

Mattie Bridgmon bumped a notable name out of the Eastern Washington record book at Mt. SAC with her 16:47.65 clocking for 5,000 meters: Kari McKay, whose standard of 16:57.71 had held up for 16 years. Meanwhile, Paul Limpf just missed Bob Maplestone’s 36-year-old record of 14:09.0 in the men’s 5,000 by .32. … Why was Winger competing at Purdue when the rest of his throwing mates were in California? “The truth?” said Taylor. “His girlfriend goes to Purdue and he wanted to go to that meet. It turned out OK, I guess.” Not bad – Winger set stadium records with wins in the shot put (66-93/4) and discus (197-6). … With a throw of 232-1 at Mt. SAC, WSU’s Jon Jeffreys of Spokane became just the eighth Cougar to top 70 meters (229-8) with the post-1986 javelin. … In addition to the Cougar Invitational on Saturday, a smattering of area athletes will compete at the Oregon Invitational in Eugene. CCS will send athletes to the NWAACC multi-events competition Monday and Tuesday in Vancouver.