Idaho’s Hannah Kiser and Louisiana Tech’s Chelsea Hayes were named the Verizon Western Athletic Conference Women’s Indoor Track and Field Athletes of the Week, respectively, for the week of Feb. 6-12.
Kiser, a sophomore from Wenatchee, Wash. (Wenatchee HS), excelled at the Flotrack Husky Classic and UW Open last weekend, as she finished fifth overall and was the second collegian in the women’s invitational section of the 3,000-meters. She broke the WAC all-time indoor record and the Idaho school record with a time of 9:07.23, which is sixth-best in the NCAA this season. She also became just the third woman in Idaho history to meet an NCAA auto qualifying mark indoors. Her time in the 3000-meters broke Idaho’s former school record by more than 11 seconds and is the fastest in the WAC this year by a 31-second margin. Kiser followed up that performance on Sunday with a winning time of 4:46.70 in the women’s mile run at the UW Open. She won the race by a six-second margin over teammate Erica Digby, and now holds the WAC’s top times this season in the mile (4:42.41) and 3000-meters (9:07.23) and has the second-fastest 800-meters time (2:10.65).
Hayes, a senior from New Orleans, La. (Butler County CC), reclaimed the national lead and automatically qualified for the NCAA Indoor Championships last weekend with a jump of 21-8 (6.60m) in the long jump. That mark not only set a school record, but also set a Western Athletic Conference record, topping the 21-5.25 (6.53m) jump of Boise State’s Eleni Kafourou in 2009. With the mark, Hayes won the long jump championship competition at the prestigious Tyson Invitational and provisionally qualified for the US Olympic Trials in June.
Other track nominees included: Hawai’i Ashley Satterwhite… Nevada junior Angelica Earls … New Mexico State junior Courtney Schultz … Utah State senior Kylie Hirschi.
Other field nominees included: Hawai’i TeRina Keenan … Idaho junior Alyssa Covington … Nevada junior Deborah Amoah … New Mexico State senior Jndia Cleveland … Utah State sophomore Sonia Grabowska.