RESULTS 

OGDEN, Utah. – Zack Short earned a gold medal while three other Vandals made it on the podium following the first day of action at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships for the Idaho track and field teams. The Vandals will enter the final day of the meet in sixth place on the men's side and seventh place on the women's side.

"I thought it was a great day one. We came away with four all-conference athletes including a conference champion. I thought we competed hard, and we got a lot of people through to the finals tomorrow," said Director of Track and Field/Cross Country, Tim Cawley. "We got some points we weren't expecting which is great. The Vandals went out and battled really hard today and set up for a good day tomorrow. Hopefully we'll come out and finish it off strong. I'm excited and proud of the team. They competed great."

Zack Short took first place in the shot put with a mark of 18.99m/62'3.75". Short has now won five conference championships in the event, with this being his second outdoor win. Grady Leonard also scored in the shot put, placing fifth with a heave of 17.66m/58'3.25".

Malaina Thacker finished second in the 3k steeplechase in a time of 10:24.94.

Vandals took second place in both the men's and women's long jump. Zachary Nunis leaped 7.71m/25'3.5" to earn silver. Tyler LyDay's mark of 5.82m/19'1.25" put her on the podium in the second spot. Henrike Fiedler also scored in the women's long jump with a jump of 5.77m/18'11.25".

In the women's high jump, Julia Hayes earned a point by finishing in a tie for seventh, clearing 1.63m/5'4.25".

Keeley Rasmussen finished eighth in the hammer with a mark of 51.53m/169'0".

In the final race of the day, Nell Baker took seventh place in the 10k (36:44.66) to score for the Vandals.

Most of the track events on Friday were preliminary races and many Vandals earned their spot in the finals to be held on Saturday. Caleb Hagan will race on Saturday in both the 100m and 200m. His 10.45 time in the 100 on Friday was the best of the day.

Olivia Martin qualified for the 400m on the women's side, while Spencer Barrera had the second-best time on the men's side to move on to the finals.

Anna Pecha will race in the finals for the 800, while on the men's side, both Lorenz Herrmann and Ben Shaw had top eight times to move on.

Tim Stevens and Caleb Seeley each ran fast enough in the 1500 prelims to qualify for Saturday's final race.

Ben Doucette's 14.18 in the 110m hurdles was the second-best time of the day and moves him to the finals on Saturday where he will be joined by Deyondre Davis.

In the 400m hurdles, Franziska Stoehr and Prabhasha Wickramaraachchi will compete in the finals.  

With one day to go in the Big Sky Championships, the Vandal women sit seventh with 24 points. Northern Arizona leads the way with 47 points. On the men's side, Idaho is sixth with 22 points. Weber State has 77 points to sit first.

The first events on Saturday are set to begin at 8:30 a.m. PT.

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