Washington State men win MPSF indoor title, set Podium record in 4x400-meter relay

Consider this Wayne Phipps’ Michael Corleone moment.

You know. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

“This is the fourth time I’ve been in this league,” Washington State’s track and field coach said. “Nobody’s been in and out of it more than I have.”

But never quite as in as this: With four more individual champions on Saturday, the WSU men ran and jumped to the team title at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation indoor meet at the Podium.

A victory and Podium record in the 4x400-meter relay put a cap on the Cougars’ third MPSF title and first since 2001, though Phipps’ connection predates even that. He was an assistant at Idaho when the Vandals were the surprise winners in 1997, and head coach during another short stay a few years later. When he took the job at WSU, the Cougars were part of the MPSF for indoor track until 2021.

“But then the Pac-12 coaches didn’t want to be in it anymore, so out we went,” he said.

Then out went the Pac, period. So Saturday’s championship – 162-124 over Long Beach State – made for the rare upside to the Cougars’ recent spin in realignment hell.

WSU’s women made a run at the banner, too, climbing to within a point of the lead late Saturday – only to watch Oregon State roll up 52 points in the final four events to win with a 26-point cushion.

And there was an auxiliary reward, as well.

“We have some high-end people who get attention during the season for their success,” Phipps said, “but in a meet like this, kids who don’t necessarily set records make a big difference, and seeing those kids surprise with a podium finish or score some points is so great.”

The culminating relay was pretty much a microcosm of the Cougs’ leave-it-all-on-the-track effort. While Grant Buckmiller – who set the only meet record of the weekend on Friday in the 200 meters – broke things open on the second leg with a 45.9-second carry, to see his teammates sprawled on the track apron in various states of agony afterward suggested a more down-to-the-wire grind.

“That one hurt,” said Mason Lawyer, winner of the 60-meter title earlier in the day who was running his first 400 of the season.

The time – 3 minutes, 7.76 seconds – was something of a disappointment, even as it shaved nearly a full second off the Cougars’ own Podium standard.

“We were thinking 3:05 something,” said Lawyer, who was part of a school-record run in that neighborhood last year, “but I think we can get it outdoors.”

Another example of the Cougars’ digging deep came in the triple jump, where Eli Lawrence entered as a prohibitive favorite off of two 51-foot jumps in the last month. But his 48-2½ opener put him in an “uh-oh” state of mind, and eventually he slipped to third when Riverside’s Kyan Thomas hit a 50-footer in the sixth and final round.

But Lawrence summoned an answer – 50-7¼ on his final attempt.

“I had a lot of confidence after the way I’d been jumping this season, but I let a lot of things get in my head,” he said. “But I think my best jumps always come when I’m losing. I kind of like it when I’m down and have to pull one out.”

And then there was the redemption of sorts for Evans Kurui, the Kenyan distance flash who won Friday’s 5,000 meters by a full lap, only to be disqualified for taking a step on the infield to recover from stumbling on a curve. Phipps reported that Kurui “felt so bad (Friday) night – he thought he’d let the team down,” but there was certainly no hangover.

Three laps into the Saturday’s 3,000, Kurui threw in a 4:07 mile to open up a 100-meter lead, then closed with a 29-second final lap to win in 8:07.90.

Next stop: the NCAA Indoor in Virginia Beach, Virginia, in three weeks, where he’ll tackle the 5,000 again. He’s No. 9 nationally with a 13:17.16 best.

“I’m prepared to do something big at nationals, like 12:59,” he said.

On the women’s side, Brazilian Micaela De Mello matched Lawyer as the meet’s high-point athlete with a personal-best win in the hurdles (8.00) and something of a surprise second in the flat 60 just 10 minutes later.

“It’s a quick turn-around,” she said, “but we do things like that all the time in practice, and for me it’s really fun because I get to run with my teammates – I don’t have many of them in the hurdles.”

De Mello is one of the dominant athletes on the West Coast, but the Cougars were buoyed even more by some of their more unsung runners – like Brooke Lyons in the sprints and miler Nicole Bissell, who both had podium finishes. And Colville senior Alaina Stone Boggs, just fifth among entrants in the 3,000, spurted into first two-thirds of the way through the race and made it stand up for victory in 9:29.14.

“I knew I could race with any of them, but there were some girls in there who were pretty quick,” said Stone Boggs, a state cross country champion at Colville. “I sometimes get wrapped up in times, so I tried not to do that and just run with the group and be strategic about it and it worked out for me.”