After two broken school records, multiple personal records and national qualifying performances Feb. 10, the Colorado State indoor track and field team is headed to the Mountain West championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Rams have high hopes of claiming both the men’s and women’s conference titles and hanging another championship flag in the Glenn Morris Field House.
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All events are registered to compete and participate in the three-day competition. Jump-starting the meet Thursday is the men’s heptathlon and the women’s pentathlon.
Friday’s schedule consists of throws, jumps, pole vault and track preliminaries, which leads into Saturday’s finals for shot put, pole vault, triple jump, track events and high jump. The roster for who is competing in these events was finalized earlier this week, with 25 women and 28 men from CSU qualifying.
Both teams have a shot at winning, as the women are ranked No. 24 in the RunnerSpace.com rating index — first in the MW — while the men slot in at No. 98 — third in the MW.
Anna Petr, who now has the school record in the mile, spoke of her excitement going into this weekend, as she was struggling with an Achilles tendon injury in last year’s season.
“Training has been going well for myself and my teammates,” Petr said. “We have a lot of highly ranked people across all events.”
Petr also competed in cross country last year, qualifying to attend the NCAA championship in Virginia and playing a valuable role on the conference team, which won the championship title. She will be racing in the distance medley relay and the mile in hopes of scoring points in both events for the women’s team and breaking the mile record of 4 minutes, 39.03 seconds she set at the Husky Classic.
Petr is not the only athlete who competed at last year’s conference meet and is going into this year with hopes of a better performance.
Tyler Colwell placed seventh in last year’s MW championships men’s 200-meter dash and fifth in the 60-meter dash.
“Just being in the final last year for both events has given me a lot of confidence,” Colwell said. “This year I’m going in knowing what to expect.”
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This is the second time this year that Colwell will compete on New Mexico’s track.
The indoor track team is one to watch out for in all events as they continue to have outstanding performances. Not only is the heptathlon group ranked No. 2 in the nation, but women’s shot put is ranked No. 3, and women’s weight throws are ranked No. 5.
It’ll be fun to watch this weekend’s results to see if both teams claim that conference title, led by a group of incredible student-athletes like Petr and Colwell. Those interested in following along can watch the live-streamed meet on the MW website, and live results will be featured there as well.
The men’s heptathlon starts 10 a.m. Feb. 22.
“I feel confident going in, and I think our team is ready to go,” coach Brian Bedard said. “(It’s) not like we’re completely healthy, but we’re in a pretty good spot healthwise at this point in the season.”
Kensey May and Adam Gross can be reached at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @RMCollegianSpts.
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