DENVER – Idaho’s Erica Digby and Louisiana Tech’s Chelsea Hayes have been named the Verizon Western Athletic Conference Women’s Outdoor Track and Field Athletes of the Week, respectively, for the week of April 2-April 8.
Digby, a senior from Vancouver, British Columbia (Kitsilano Secondary), posted a WAC-leading and career-best time in the 1,500-meter run at the Stanford Invitational on Friday. Her time of 4:22.18 currently ranks 13th in the NCAA West performance list and 25th in the nation, and bests her previous personal record by 13 seconds. The time also ranks third all-time at Idaho and gives Digby the third-fastest time in her home country of Canada so far this year. She followed up the performance on Saturday with a seven-second career best in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:13.46, which currently ranks eighth in the conference.
Hayes, a senior from New Orleans, La. (Butler County CC), set a new facility record in the long jump at Louisiana Tech’s Jim Mize Invitational over the weekend, winning the event with a wind-legal leap of 21 feet, 8.75 inches (6.62 meters), a mark that currently ranks tied for third in the nation. Hayes’ mark, just an inch and a quarter away from an automatic qualifying standard for the U.S. Olympic Trials, is the best wind-legal long jump ever recorded by a LA Tech athlete. It is also more than two feet better than any WAC athlete’s jump so far this season.
Other track nominees included: Lyndsie Etherton, Fresno State; Ashley Aitken, Hawai‘i; Jndia Cleveland, New Mexico State; Mariah Gramolini, Nevada; and Jessie Chugg, Utah State.
Other field nominees included: AnaManu Folau, Fresno State; TeRina Keenan, Hawai‘i; Johanna Höcketstaller, Idaho; Deborah Amoah, Nevada; Kelsey Brennan, New Mexico State; and Spela Hus, Utah State.
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