February 18, 2008
MSUB Indoor Track and
Field Teams Head to First GNAC Championship
NAMPA, Idaho – The Montana State Billings
men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams head to the Great
Northwest Athletic Conference Championships Monday, Feb. 18 at
the Idaho Sports Center. The meet is hosted by Northwest
Nazarene University. This will be the first GNAC Championship
for the MSUB track team since it joined the conference last
fall.
The Yellowjackets nearly qualified the
entire team in the individual events and will enter two relays
as well. Those athletes that were not in the top 16 after
the regular season are entered at wildcards or will run one of
the relays.
“I was quite surprised that we qualified so
many individuals after the final scratch list came out,” MSUB
head coach Dave Coppock said. “We were a ways down in the
ranking after the last regular season meet.”
The Yellowjackets look especially strong in
the men’s 60 meters with freshman Nathan Diede and in the 5,000
meters senior Richie Pemberton. On the women’s side, look
for freshmen Lexi Halvorson, Kacie Vanderloose and Kelsee Clark
to have a strong showing. In addition, the men’s mile
relay (4 X 400 meters) looks strong as well.
“We’ve really been struggling this season
since returning from the holiday break,” Coppock said.
“The team is doing all they can to adapt to the weather being
poor for most of the season. We did get outdoors last week
and made up a little ground.”
From a conference standpoint, Seattle
Pacific was tabbed as the favorite to win on the women’s side
having eight top-seeded athletes in 13 individual events.
The Falcons are the overwhelming favorite to win their
fifth-straight title.
On the men’s side, Western Oregon looks to
be the favorite as it has the most seeds (4) and the most top
four seeds (16).
“We have a very young team, most of whom
have never competed indoors, so I’m happy to have them all make
it to the conference championships this first time out,” Coppock
added. |
