Track Back in Action for Outdoor Season

PROVO -- After finishing the indoor season, the Cougars head to California to kick off the outdoor season this weekend at the Cal-Poly Invitational.

Both the men and women's team face competition from Utah State, University of Washington, Fresno State, University California Santa Barbara and Cal-Poly as the Cougars look to climatize to the outdoor season.

"We look at this meet as a good opening meet just to get our season started," men's head coach Mark Robison said. "It's really is a huge transition from inside to outside. We're just trying to see where they are at."

Many of the individuals on the team have not competed since conference.

"The team really has gotten in some good training the past few weeks that hopefully will help them to have a strong start this weekend," Robison said. "It's reestablishing ourselves and seeing what hey can do as we add four or five new events in the Outdoor season," Robison said.

Among the new events are the decathlon, steeplechase, javelin, hammer, discus, 100m-hurdles and 400m-hurdles.

Most of the team's athletes will compete this weekend except those who competed at nationals last weekend who will rest from competition.

"Beyond those who competed at nationals," women's head coach Craig Poole said. "I just want to give people an opportunity to get back into action, especially those who haven't competed since conference or before and get them working towards gaining a position on the outdoor conference team."

The days events will begin on the field at 9:30 a.m. in the long jump and end with the high jump at 1 p.m. The track events will begin at 11 a.m. with the women's 3000m Steeplechase and end at 2:50 p.m. with the 1600m Relay.