Bengals Ready for the Mt. SAC Relays and Mark Faldmo Invitational

POCATELLO, Idaho – Idaho State track and field splits the squad this weekend, sending athletes to both the Mt. SAC Relays and the Mark Faldmo Invitational.
 
The Mt. SAC Relays begin Thursday and will feature Idaho State's distance members, sprinters, and field athletes who met the lofty qualifying standards. Over 350 men's and women's teams will converge upon Cerritos, Calif., from all over the country. Conference opponents Eastern Washington, Idaho, North Dakota, Northern Arizona, Portland State, Sacramento State, Southern Utah and Weber State will all be attending.
 
The Mark Faldmo Invitational will feature the majority of ISU's athletes. Events begin on Friday and run through Saturday. Idaho State will face BYU, Utah Valley, Weber State, and Utah State in Logan, Utah.

Big Sky Qualifiers 
The Bengals have now met 20 conference qualifying standards. Last week, Steven Wacker (pole vault), Preston Perkins (pole vault), Samantha Simmons (pole vault), Kaitlin Sorensen-Keller (triple jump) and Bailey Bars (javelin) earned their qualifiers. They will head to the Big Sky Outdoor Conference Championships in Greely, Colo., this May to represent ISU with teammates Presli Hutchison (5,000m and 10,000m), Carly Hansen (5,000 and 10,000), Bailey Woodbury (heptathlon), Robert Counts (200m and 400m), Bret Davide (400m), Daniel Garz (800m), Ty James (3,000m steeplechase), Deante Gaines (long jump and triple jump), Khalil Abdul-Hakim (triple jump), James Rodeman (decathlon) and Justin Franz (shot put).  

Conference Leaders 
In the triple jump, Gaines is the conference leader with his 14.74m performance at the UVU Collegiate Invitational. At the Utah Spring Classic, Wacker cleared 5.10m mark to top the conference in the pole vault and Bars heaved a 48.08m throw to claim the top-spot in the javelin. Bars also ranks 33rd in the nation after her performance.
 
Flashback
In last year's Mt. SAC Relays, Katie Nicholls ran a 2:10.14 in the 800m to finish 20th in a field of 40 runners.
 
At the 2015 Mark Faldmo Invite, Wacker and Kyle Searle both cleared the bar at 4.75m to place third and fourth in the pole vault while the men's 4x400m relay team ran a 3:17.41 race for the win.
 
On the women's side, Tori Lanza ran a 1:04.34 in the 400m hurdles to finish third. Simmons won the pole vault after clearing a 3.66m height and Danielle Rausch finished third at 3.35m. Woodbury also placed after soaring 5.60m to take second in the long jump.