Colorado State University Athletics
Colorado State
Mountain West Conference
Rams women finish third, men fifth at MWC meet
5/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Outdoor Track & Field
May 16, 2009
By John Manuszak
Athletic Media Relations
LARAMIE, Wyo. – The Colorado State women finished third and the men fifth at the 2009 Mountain West Conference track and field championship which concluded Saturday at Wyoming.
The Rams tallied 95.5 points on the women’s side and 110 on the men’s side. BYU won both the men’s and women’s titles with 214 points and 190 points, respectively.
“I thought we had some good performances and we competed well,” said Head Coach Brian Bedard. “On the women’s side we are a very young team but a lot of our youngsters really stepped up today. Last year when we won the women’s title we had 12 seniors that totaled 92 points for us and that is tough to replace. But overall I thought our women performed well. On the men’s side, we had some solid performances but just not enough of them. We just have too many holes and when you don’t have entries in certain events, it’s going to hurt you in the standings.”
Junior Ryan Friese was the lone Ram to capture an event title on Saturday as he posted a time of 1 minute, 51.24 seconds in the 800-meter run. Friese, who has already reached the regional-qualifying standard on several occasions this season, is the first male athlete at Colorado State to win the 800-meter run since his current coach, Bryan Berryhill, won the event three consecutive years from 1999-01.
Senior Missy Faubus concluded her final MWC season on Saturday with a third-place finish in the shot put (50 feet, 0.75 inches) after taking home the discus title and finishing seventh in the hammer throw.
Other CSU athletes to tally multiple points on Saturday included Marissa Saunders who finished fourth in the 1,500-meter at 4:37.93 and seventh in the 800-meter run at 2:16.89, Kirsten Anthony who placed sixth in the 5,000-meter run (18:22.21) and seventh in the 1,500-meter run (4:41.43), and hurdler Nigel Joseph who took home second in the 400-meter hurdles (52.09) and fourth in the 110-meter hurdles (14.89).
Twelve Rams also scored points for CSU on Saturday including Jennifer Ugochukwu (fifth; shot put at 47-08.00), Niomi Ridge (fourth; high jump at 5-07), Nnamdi Agwu (second; triple jump at 49-05.75), Doug Dieker (fifth; pole vault at 15-07), Ian Lettow (third; shot put at 54-7.25), Jeff Horinek (fourth; shot put at 54-04.50), Tyson Williams (fifth; shot put at 53-09.25), Wil Buchanan (second; 1,500 meter run at 3:56.61), Brian Fox (sixth; 400-meter dash at 48.56), Tanesha Johnson (eighth; 200-meter dash at 24.66 and fourth; triple jump at 40-0.5), Nicole Peters (fourth; 5000-meter run at 18:14.31) and Kendra Gerk (fifth; 5000-meter run 18:19.00).
CSU also tallied points in the men’s 4x100-meter relay (fifth; 41.22), the men’s 4x400-meter relay (third: 3:13.69) and the women’s 4x400-meter relay (second; 3:55.17).
Several members of CSU’s team that have hit regional-qualifying marks so far this season will be in action on May 29-30 at the NCAA regional at the University of Oklahoma.
