Seeing Double: Rams sweep team titles at Mountain West Outdoor Championships

CLOVIS, Calif. – A complete program, inside and out.

Literally.

On Saturday at Veterans Memorial Stadium, the Colorado State men's and women's programs swept the team titles at the 2019 Mountain West Outdoor Championships, backing up the dual sweep the Rams pulled off during the indoor season.

"That was one of our goals this year, to see if we could do it," head coach Brian Bedard said. "We just have a special group of team leaders, enough talent to get it done and a coaching staff that gets them prepared. It's fragile, trying to get it to come all together at the right time. We had athletes score who weren't supposed to, and athletes score higher than they were supposed to."

The Rams become the first program to sweep all four championships in a single season since former member BYU did it in 2011 for the eighth time. The Rams were the last conference team to sweep the outdoor titles, doing so back in 2015. This is the fourth outdoor title for the women, the second for the men.

The Rams did it with depth and front-line talent, bunching up points in some events and getting quality results from seniors and freshmen alike.

"That's what we want to do is put together a complete team, score in as many events as we can. That's our recipe to winning championships, our model, and it's worked in the past," Bedard said. "We knew we had a good opportunity on both sides. We thought the women had a little more of a margin, and we though the men's race would be really tough. We just had a special meet, so the gap widened. We got off to a fantastic start, and we have some multis who are really iron men for us; Hunter Powell and Nick Kravec, tough seniors who know how to compete."

The conference championships mark the fifth and sixth this year for Colorado State.

The men won the title from wire to wire, opening with Powell's decathlon title and moving from there, finishing at 224 points, well ahead of Air Force at 171. The women moved in front at the end of the third day and kept the pace, getting a huge push from four placers in the discus on the way to 159.5 points, beating out San Diego State with 121.

Overall, the women had six individual champions, the men four.

Men's Results

Adam Dawson was simply spectacular in leading a 1-2-3 finish for the Rams in the event, with a seventh-place thrown in for good measure. Not only did the freshman throw a personal-best 187-6 for the title, his attempts were the top six throws on the day. His goal is consistency, living in that zone.

"I've been consistent this season, with my PR being around 57.7 meters, and I wasn't sure how far I was going to throw today," he said. "I was really happy with how consistent I was. It's consistency first, then you try to push your throws. It was nice to start off with an easy throw, then build up from that.

"That nice, easy throw was a lot farther than I thought it would be, then it went out from there."

Bailey King (174-9) and Jackson Morris (173-11) stood on the podium with him in order, with Weston Wright taking seventh (160-7) and Beau Gordon also reaching the final flight. Having five in the finals created an energy Dawson said they all fed off of, the added support making it easier to stay up.

Being the first event of the day – and scoring 26 big points for the team race – was not lost on Dawson, who spent the rest of the evening paying it forward.

"(Team points) is something I think about all the time," he said. "I want to be able to come to the track and support and help my team. Having a huge discus competition from the throws squad is encouraging for the rest of our team. Now we want to keep up the mood."

Being a champion as a freshman sets an impressive early standard, one he doesn't find intimidating.

"It's a bar I want to reach, and keep it going," he said. "I want to keep pushing myself and my teammates through the upcoming years."

Another freshman, Germain Barnes, provided another individual championship for the men, running 52.30 to capture the 400 hurdles, with teammate Kamal-Craig Golaube finishing fifth in 53.30.

In other field events, Isa Bynum had a PR of 49-4.25 (eighth all time) to place third, in the triple jump with teammate Dalten Fox finishing sixth at 47-4.25. Powell placed fourth in the pole vault, his 16-1.25 ranking 10^th best on the school list. Morris, who was the men's high-point scorer in the meet, came back later to place third in the javelin at 217-5.

The men's 4x100 relay kicked off the running events, taking second in a time 40.64, a place matched by Cole Rockhold in the 1,500 meters (3:47.33). The Rams loaded up in the 110 hurdles with five scorers – Jose Lopez second (14.37), Golaube third (14.43), Andrew Doctor fourth (14.71), Kravec sixth (14.85) and Barnes seventh (14.86). At that point, the men had 160 points, 71 clear of Utah State.

But they kept going.

Caleb Hardy came in second in the 400 (48.06); Will Domier (10.56, 10^th on the school list) and Nathan Gish (10.64) finished fourth and seventh in the 100; runner-up honors also went to Gish in the 200, clocking in at 21.35; Eric Hamer, the 10,000 champ, finished third in the 5,000 (14:04.65), with Rockhold seventh (14:13.31). The meet closed with the 4x400 team placing third in 3:16.19.

Women's Results

The women's 4x100 relay nailed down the title it was favored for as Jessica Ozoude, Marybeth Sant, Destinee Rocker and Lauren Gale won in 44.12. Among them, they continued to make a difference throughout the day, Rocker stepping to the forefront first.

The sophomore nailed down a school record in winning the 100 hurdles, crossing in 13.05, with teammate Aria Tate seventh (13.95). The freshman Gale followed next, bookending her indoor 400 title in a winning time of 53.18, then ended the day by anchoring the 4x400 team to a third-place finish in 3:42.61.

Ozoude and Sant spent the rest of the day battling each other, with Ozoude winning the 200 title in 23.13, with Sant third in 23.46. In the 100, both Sant and Ozoude broke Janay DeLoach's school record in the 100, going 11.41 and 11.43 to finish second and third.

Roxy Trotter added to the point total by taking seventh in the 1,500 in a time of 4:34.84, Michelle Gould was eighth in the 400 hurdles (1:03.11) and Ali Kallner was seventh in the 5,000 at 16:38.08, a personal best.

Naturally, the field crew stayed heavily involved in the act as 2017 NCAA discus champion Shadae Lawrence used her opening throw of 213-5 to break her school record and the Mountain West record, leading pack of four placing Rams. The toss also stands as tops in the nation this season. Hammer champion Kelcey Bedard was second (183-2), 2018 conference discus champ Maria Muzzio (170-10) was fifth and Tarynn Sieg came in seventh (165-0).

Sieg and Gabby Smith both PR'd in the javelin, finishing third and seventh, respectively. Sieg's throw of 137-6 stands as ninth-best all time at the school, while Smith tossed 129-4. Amelia Harvey placed eighth in the triple jump at 38-8.25, qualifying out of the first heat to do so. In the high jump, Aria Tate took seventh and Lexie Keller was eight, both clearing 5-7.25, separated just by order of misses.

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