Senior Mason Finley had another headlining performance last weekend at the Jack Christianson Invitational at Colorado State University.
Coming off his record-setting fifth Mountain West Track and Field Male Athlete of the Week honor, Finley led the Cowboys to their fifth-place finish after his first-place and season-best 61.65-meter discus throw.
The senior’s throw ranks sixth in the NCAA and second in Wyoming’s history.
“It was a very nice day in Fort Collins today, but it wasn’t optimal conditions for the discus,” said Wyoming head coach Bryan Berryhill. “In the discus you want some wind and it was really calm today. To throw that well in dead air is impressive. It shows that even if it’s not perfect conditions, Mason is going to go out there and compete well.”
Finley was the second Cowboy to earn a first-place honor. Sophomore Scott Carter’s won men’s triple jump with his career-best 15.41-meter finish. Carter’s jump also earned him the sixth spot in Wyoming’s history.
Although Carter and Finely were the only Cowboys to win an event on Saturday, freshman Jordan Charles, graduate student Harry Fisher and freshman Thomas Atkinson all ran top-ten times at the meet.
Charles finished higher than any other Cowboy in three different events. The freshman ran a 52.64 in the 400-meter hurdles to put him in fourth place, a 14.26 in the 100-meter hurdles for fifth place and a 10.74 for a ninth-place finish in the 100-meter dash.
Fisher’s 1:50.16 time in the 800-meter earned him a third-place finish. Atkinson followed by a little over two seconds, finishing in seventh place with a time of 1:52.69.
“Overall, it was a really good day of competition,” said Berryhill. “A lot of times when you come off a big meet the kids are down, but the ones we brought down here today competed really well. Not all the times were where we wanted them, but the energy was there.”
Senior Candice Wollert paced the Cowgirls to their second-place finish as the only member of the team to win a solo event. Wollert won the 400 with a time of 57.04. Her time was six seconds short of former-Cowgirl Jessica Fox’s record for the event.
Freshman Kerry White finished .02 seconds behind Wollert in 400, with a time of 57.06. Freshman Danielle Alexander followed closely – her 57.71 finish put her in ninth place.
The Cowgirls took home the gold in the 4×400 relay with a time of 3:41.48. Seniors Taylor Gardner and Audrey West and sophomores Kereston Thomas and McKenzie Brogan were all apart of the relay team. They finished eight seconds short of the record held by Wyoming in the event.
Wyoming ended the meet with a combined 238.72 points.
Wyoming will host the Cowpoke Open this Saturday at the Louis S. Madrid Complex.
