Catherine Cloetta competes in a meet from a previous season meet.
Spring has started up with UW Track and Field taking big strides forward to show their dominance.
Twenty-two athletes from both the men’s and the women’s teams placed in the top three at the last meet in Colorado, with the Mountain West female track athlete of the week being from Wyoming and a freshman Wyomingite taking first.
“We feel like we’re a better outdoor team when you look at the makeup of our team and our roster. We were excited and felt like we had a good solid indoor season, but really looking forward to the outdoor season,” head coach Brian Berryhill said in a previous interview.
With this result in the early stages of the outdoor season, the team is making a bold statement for UW Track and Field. Berryhill thought the Fum McGraw Quadrangular Invite in Fort Collins was a huge step forward from their previous meet in Boulder. He also thinks that they are taking good strides in moving forward and preparing for the championships in May. Berryhill hopes to see many of the team members meeting their personal bests within the next two weeks when the team travels to New Mexico.
Although many athletes did well at the Invite, Audra DeStefano, a native of Gillette, took first in the 3000-meter steeplechase in last Friday’s Kit Mayer Memorial Open in Golden, Colorado with a time of 10:30.59, which is currently the fastest time in the Mountain West conference and the NCAA West Region. This week DeStefano was named Mountain West female track athlete of the week.
“It’s always exciting to learn of something exciting in your direction,” DeStefano said with high hopes for the future events and hopes to continue to improve and qualify for the NCAA Championships again.
DeStefano already owns the school record in the steeplechase, but coach Berryhill expects for her to fare better this weekend.
DeStefano was not the only Wyoming resident to have a great start to the season, freshman Ricky Faure has also done very well this year.
“Ricky’s had a great start to his college career. Came out of high school the number one kid in the nation, had a lot of pressure from that. But he’s handled it well, he’s won every college race outside of one, so he’s done very well [sic],” Berryhill said.
Faure said that he felt good about the last invite and he has been consistent with his time in the past three meets.
“Being consistent you can’t complain about that, it’s a pretty decent time this early in the season,” Berryhill said. At the Fum McGraw Quadrangular Invite, Faure placed first in the 800-meter race with a time of 1:50.87. With fellow teammates Thomas Atkinson and Calum Kepler right behind him for second and third place, Faure said that the partners he has in practice push him to run harder and to keep getting better in every race he participates in.
Wyoming will race next at the Tom Bench Invite in Greeley, Colorado on April 4.
