Indoor Track & Field Montana Tech Sports Information

Montana Tech Competes at Inland Northwest Invite

SPOKANE, Wash. – The Montana Tech track and field teams competed at the Inland Northwest Invitational hosted by Whitworth University this weekend. The meet featured NAIA and NCAA Division I and III student-athletes is the first of two indoor competitions held at the podium this season.

"Our first trip to Spokane was pretty successful. It was great to compete in a truly world class facility against a bunch of schools we are not used to seeing," head coach Zach Kughn said. "Our athletes learned a lot and I was impressed with our improvement in just one week. Fourteen athletes set new personal bests across all four event groups. We had numerous athletes making the finals in their events. They didn't team score this meet, but we definitely made an impact in a meet with predominantly D1 and D2 athletes."

Edwin Kipainoi won the 5,000-meter with a time of 15:02.79 and just missed the NAIA B standard.

Freshman Cade VanFleet just missed the B standard by centimeters in the weight throw. VanFleet finished fourth overall with a 15.99 meter mark. He took 10th in the shot put with a throw of 13.91 meters.

Natylia Jacobson was the top finisher in both the 60 and 200 meter dashes among the NAIA competitors. Jacobson finished fifth in the 60 with a time of 7.88 seconds in the finals after running a 7.84 in the preliminaries. In the 200, she finished in ninth place with a time of 26.37 seconds. Freshman Mollee Conlan also made the finals and finished in 8th place with a time of 8.17 seconds.

Freshman Morgan McClernan made the finals in the 60 meter hurdles. He finished in seventh place with a time of 8.74 seconds.

The Orediggers had three participants make the finals in long jump. Abby Clark and Jadyn Vermillion placed first and second and Hadassah Wilson jumped 5.00 meters finishing in ninth. Clark best jump was 5.35 meters and Vermillion had a mark of 5.24
meters.

Olleca Severson reached the finals in the 60 meter hurdles finishing in eighth place with a time of 10.00 seconds.

Drake Schlachter finished fourth in the long jump with a mark of 6.68 meters.

Naiya Beaudin took fifth in the triple jump with a mark of 10.55 meters.

"We are taking this next weekend off to focus on training and recovery before heading back to Spokane for a two day meet on the 10th and 11th," Kughn said.