Vandals stock up for next season’s move to WAC
The easiest part of the job this season for University of Idaho women’s track coach Yogi Teevens? Uniform checkout.
It may be a record – the Vandals are redshirting 11 of their top women while casting an eye toward their official entrance into the Western Athletic Conference next year.
“Our idea is to load up a little to go into the WAC,” said Teevens. “We didn’t feel we could win the Big West this year, but that we do have a shot at the WAC – so why not really make a run at it?”
The Vandals tried a similar tactic in 2002. Coming off the Big West Conference championship in 2001, Teevens redshirted star hurdler-jumper Angela Whyte and some other seniors – and it paid off in another Big West title in 2003.
“Santa Barbara is so strong in the distance events and our distance points are going to be much more valuable in the WAC,” she said. “Besides, we’d love to have this group around for five years anyway.”
Actually, the Vandals – who host the McDonald’s Open on Saturday – dipped their toes into WAC waters this past winter, invited to compete in the indoor championships a year early. Neither the men nor women made much of a splash, largely because of the number of athletes sitting out.
The women redshirting outdoors include sprinters Tanya Pater and Vernee Samuel, Big West triple jump champ Tammy Stowe, javelin runner-up Kate Buehler, WAC indoor pole vault champ Melinda Owen and distance runners Dee Olson, Alisha Murdoch, Bevan Kennelly and Mandy Macalister.
Stowe was among a group that competed unattached at the Pelluer Invitational.
“I approach (a redshirt season) the same way,” she said. “I can take it a little easier, but still get stronger and work on technique and get healthier. I still have goals to PR and the same expectations, but it’s taking a long view toward next year.”
Teevens isn’t concerned that her redshirts will think of it as taking a year off.
“Kids know it’s a unique situation,” she said. “We get to travel some young kids more and they get some attention they might not get in a normal year. And the redshirts understand that it’s important to keep the intensity just as high.”
That seemed clear at the Pelluer. Stowe even threw in with Pater, Samuel and quarter-miler Heather Hoeck to win the 4x100-meter relay – in the fastest time run in the area this spring.
“I haven’t done that since high school,” Stowe said.
Of course, there’s another unspoken motivation for the senior redshirts: The 2006 WAC meet is being hosted by Hawaii.
“That helps,” Stowe laughed.
Better than Ichiro
Whitworth’s batting average, that is. Coach Toby Schwarz has 35 athletes on his women’s roster and with just one meet remaining, 31 of them have qualified for next week’s Northwest Conference championships at Linfield.
Now, the NWC qualifying standards aren’t prohibitive – it’s an NCAA Division III conference in a cold-weather clime, and the league meet is so early in the season that there’s barely a month and a half to post marks. Still, 89 percent is pretty good work.
“And the other four could qualify,” Schwarz said, “and one of them has never done track in her life.”
That’s Tiffany Speer, the Pirates’ two-time NWC Player of the Year in basketball. She’s just 1 1/2 inches shy of the NWC standard in the high jump.
The Pirates host an open meet at Boppell Track on Saturday.
Watch happenin’?
At last weekend’s Brutus Hamilton Invitational at Cal, event winners were presented with watches. So Washington State’s Justin Ireland had extra reason to feel good after running a lifetime best of 1 minute, 51.89 seconds to win the men’s 800 meters.
Just one problem. Officials had already given away the watch to Air Force’s Kevin Hawkins, the winner of the first – and expected to be the fastest – heat in 1:52.35. Ireland had been shunted to the third heat.
“I told them, ‘Well, go find Air Force and get our watch,’ ” said WSU coach Rick Sloan. “And they did. No box, no instructions, just the watch – ‘Here you go, Justin.’ “
Bell lap
A number of other athletes are redshirting this spring for various reasons. At Eastern Washington, hurdler Alex Moon, sprinter-hurdler Haley Heater and middle distance ace Caitlin Prunty are all pushing back their senior seasons to coincide with EWU’s hosting of the Big Sky meet next year. Idaho’s Brandon Folk, the Big West javelin runner-up from Central Valley and the Community Colleges of Spokane, is recovering from Tommy John surgery on his elbow. Mark Currell, CCS’ track and cross country MVP last year, is sidelined by an Achilles’ problem. … This is javelin country: Eight women with Inland Northwest ties have exceeded the NCAA regional qualifying standard of 141-7. Besides the EWU trio of Jordan Graeme, Carolee Geaudreau and Stephanie Ulmer, and WSU’s Jenna Dean and Rachel Bertholf, the qualifiers are Idaho’s Manuela Kurrat, ex-Gonzaga Prep thrower Erin Merriman of Stanford and former Mead thrower Alicia Mills of Montana. … Former Central Valley high jumper David Pendergrass, back at BYU after a mission, has rejoined the 7-foot club with a clearance of 7-1/2 this spring. … Amendments to the record book out of last weekend’s Pelluer Invitational: The 12-31/2 pole vault by EWU’s Sarah Hegna actually tied the meet record Montana’s Kari Wilson set last year. And, to be technical, Graeme’s 152-3 throw is a meet record with the women’s javelin that was retooled for shorter flight in 1999. Those are Woodward Field records as well. … In addition to the two local meets, WSU and Idaho will send athletes to the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, Calif.