The Colorado State track and field team spent a busy week in California, as the team competed in five separate meets from Wednesday to Saturday.
The Rams’ multi-event athletes kicked the week off at the California Invitational in Azusa, California on Wednesday. After Thursday’s competition concluded, CSU junior Hunter Price stood as the new school record-holder in the decathlon.
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Price’s mark of 7,801-points bested the previous school record set by John Harrell 35 years ago. Price’s mark is also the second best in Mountain West history.
“Hunter (Price) had a great meet,” CSU assistant coach Ryan Baily said. “He did exactly what he needed to do — putting some marks together, some well above his ‘any given day’ marks, some below. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but we’re really excited for him. Hunter’s got a lot more in him.”
The Rams were also in competition at the Pacific Coast Intercollegiate meet in Long Beach on Thursday. Three CSU runners finished in the top-six in the women’s 800. Macy Kreutz (2:11.65) finished in second place with the fifth best time in CSU history while Roxy Trotter (2:11.81) and Dominique Ward (2:12.86) finished in fifth and sixth place, respectively.
Also on Thursday, at the Mt. SAC relays in Torrance, California, Laura Yarrow won the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of ten minutes, 7.85 seconds — good for the second-fastest time in school history.
On Friday, the CSU distance team continued its prolific start to the 2017 outdoor season at the Mt. SAC relays and the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa.
Juniors Grant Fischer and Jerrell Mock were in action in the 5,000 at Mt. SAC where both runners ran some of the best times in the event in school history. Fischer finished his race in 13.46.80 — good for third in the CSU record book while Mock ended up just behind Fischer with a time of 13.52.06, putting Mock fourth on the all-time list.
In the 1,500 at the Bryan Clay invitational, senior Jefferson Abbey and sophomore Cole Rockhold matched Fischer and Mock’s accomplishments. Rockhold ran a 3:41.04 in the 1,500 to record the third-best time in school history while Abbey came in right behind Rockhold in 3:42.95 to place him fourth in the event in the CSU record book.
“It was a fun night to be a Ram,” CSU distance coach Art Siemers said on Friday night. “It’s fun to keep going to these meets and having our athletes perform so well. That’s what we’re trying to do here. I thought Cole (Rockhold) and Jeff (Abbey) responded really well in a race that we don’t get to run at sea level often. Jeff and Cole are two of the rocks of our team and they ran some special races tonight.”
Closing out the highlights for the Rams in California was junior Mostafa Hassan’s performance at the Mt. SAC relays on Saturday.
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In the elite section of the men’s shot put, Hassan smashed his conference and school record with a throw of 69 feet, 11 inches (20.31-meters) en route to winning the event. In his first shot put competition since his national championship performance in indoors in March, Hassan’s throw bested his previous outdoor record by over three feet.
Hassan now leads the nation in the 2017 outdoor rankings and is ranked fourth in the world in 2017 outdoor track and field competition through Saturday’s meet.
“Our whole goal as a staff was to give our team opportunities to compete and we sure showed up to a lot of meets in a short period of time,” CSU head coach Brian Bedard said of the team’s busy week. “Our athletes had a lot of opportunities, so if they were in the right mindset, good things were going to happen. Across the board, we had a lot of highlights.”
Collegian sports reporter Eric Wolf can be reached by email at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @Eric_Wolf5
