The Western Athletic Conference Track and Field teams head to Reno, Nev., for the 2002 Indoor Conference Championships. The event is going to be held in the Reno Livestock Events Center, Thursday, Feb. 21 through Saturday, Feb. 23. On the mens side, the seven WAC schools participating will be Boise State, Fresno State, Louisiana Tech, Rice, SMU, UTEP and Tulsa. For the women, Boise State, Fresno State, Louisiana Tech, host Nevada, Rice, SMU, UTEP and Tulsa will be looking for the championship.
With the departure of TCU, the WAC looks to crown a new mens champion, while on the womens side, Rice is looking for their third straight. For the women, Nevada fell just short of the Owls last season to place second, while for the men, UTEP edged Fresno State by three points for second.
UTEP sprinters Aaron Agbele, Taiwo Ajibade and Vitaly Medvedev, who have the best three times this season in both the 55 and 60 meters, will lead the mens field. Ajibade has a provisional qualifying time in both events and is one of Trackwires Dandy Dozen. Agbele qualified for nationals in the 200 meters at the Arkansas Invitational earlier this month. The distance events will be paced by SMUs Martin Allgeyer who has one of the WACs top three times in both the mile and the 3,000 meters. He has a provisional qualifying time in both events. Rice will be led by their middle-distance runners Adam Davis, Daniel Pessing and Erik Mazza. They combine for this seasons top three conference-marks in the 800m, all set in their last event, the Iowa State Classic. The Owls are also looking for good jumps for long jumper, high jumper Vaughn Walwyn. He jumped a provisional qualifying mark of 25-1 (7.50m) in the long jump at the Iowa State Classic, the best in the WAC this season. Fresno State will lean heavily on their field athletes to come through. Shlomi Ben-Shushan and Joe Vasquez are two of the Bulldogs hopefuls.
The women are looking to stop Rice from getting their third championship in a row. Nevada hopes to continue their pace after winning their last three meets. Last seasons runners-up are led by 800m runner Tanya Wright and miler Erin Brand. Rice will come in riding the shoulders of 400m WAC record-holder Allison Beckford and sprinter Keitha Moseley. If it comes down to the final event on Saturday the Owls come in with a slight advantage; they have the fastest 4x400m relay time this season by almost two seconds. A pair of Crystals hope to take the gold as Fresno States Crystal Phillips aims at the title in both the 55m and 60m sprints, while teammate Crystal Simmons sets her sights on both hurdle events. SMUs Karen Freburg, Ruta Rakstyle and Trache Quintanal are the only shot putters to throw a provisional qualifying distance.
Results will be posted on
Nevada's website.