BILLINGS, Mont. – Fresh off its first meet of the outdoor season, the Montana State University Billings track and field team will travel to Spearfish, S.D. for Black Hills State University's Yellow Jacket Spring Open this Friday and Saturday.
 
On Friday, the team's lone event will be the hammer throw, which is scheduled to start with the women at 1 p.m. Field events start on Saturday at noon, then the men's 3,000-meter steeplechase will begin the track action at 1:30 p.m. Both days of action will be livestreamed on the RMAC Network; live stat and livestream links can be found on the men's and women's track team's schedule pages on msubsports.com.
 
Including MSUB, 10 schools – including D2 programs like the University of Mary, Minot State, South Dakota Mines and Black Hills State – are expected to attend the meet.
 
Although the hammer throw will be the only event for MSUB on Friday, it'll be a big one for the 'Jackets. Nine women and four men will compete in the hammer throw, setting up what should be another productive outing for the throws squad. Last weekend, freshman Ryann Moline was four millimeters off the school record in the javelin, Forrest Cross threw the fourth-best hammer throw mark in school history, plus Braden Anderson recorded the second-furthest shot put mark in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference so far with his 14.18m (46-6.25) toss.
 
"Being able to have the hammer throw on the first day will help," Woehl said. "They can spend all of their focus on that on the first day, put all their energy into that throw, then shift their focus to the other events. We have a very talented, young group of throwers. Last weekend, even if some of the throwers didn't have all-time personal bests, they were still pretty close to them – and this is after doing a full indoor season."
 
Saturday's track action begins with a pair of season-debuts: Carson Jessop and Kailee Stoppel will run the 3,000-meter steeplechase for the first time since the 2021 GNAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Both upperclassmen rank fifth and second in school history in the event, respectively, and Woehl expects both runners to excel in their first steeplechase of the season.
 
"I think they'll both do really well," Woehl said. "The thing that I want for both of them for their first steeplechase race is to have people to run against. In the past, Carson has ran it by himself here, and Kailee set a PR as the only person in the steeplechase at this race last year. Hopefully three or four people with similar abilities will be in this race for them to compete against."
 
"Carson had a good workout on Wednesday night," Woehl added. "He was keeping up with the rest of the team even with the barriers."
 
Elsewhere, freshman Benjamin Ralston will make his outdoor debut in the 400 meter dash. Earlier this year, Ralston broke the MSUB indoor record in the 400 meters with a 50.60, which is less than two seconds off the outdoor record. Last week at the Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open, Ralston placed third in the open 100 meter dash with a 11.42 – the fastest mark by a Yellowjacket this season – which landed him a spot anchoring MSUB's 4x100 meter relay.  
 
"Ben has been practicing really well in our track workouts and in the weight room," Woehl said. "The important thing will be trying not to over-work him every week in too many events. He's doing really well, and there's definitely a possibility for him to break the school record right out the gate."
 
For the relays, MSUB will field one 4x100 and one 4x400 per gender. Both teams aim to not only clean up the handoffs this time around, but also find out who will be on the teams moving forward.
 
"We're going to use our next three meets to try and figure out what the right lineup and order is for each relay," Woehl said. "The women are already faster than what they were last season, and this year we could have two women's 4x100 relay teams break the school record. As a group, the women's sprinters are much better than they have been in the past because they're so competitive."
 
As it stands, the women's sprint team has the most options for its relays. To wit: Nine women are signed up in the open 100 meters, led by freshman Chantel Chase, who ran a team-best 13.30 last weekend. Given the team ran three seconds off the 4x100 meter school record without as much handoff practice as they have had now, Woehl believes the women's team could be in store for a season-best this weekend.
 
"I wouldn't be surprised if our women's 4x100 team broke the school the record," Woehl said. "And we had good handoffs in practice – for both the men and the women. We all had at least two, if not three or four really good handoffs for each exchange this week. We should have better exchanges than last week, which should result in faster times. We'll see where the limit is on how fast they can go."
Over on the runways, triple jump school-record-holder Kendall Lynn will make her season debut in both jumps this week. After not competing in the season opener for preventative injury measures, Lynn looks to continue momentum from her indoor season, in which she was the only athlete in the GNAC to place in the top 5 at both the long jump and the triple jump at the indoor conference championships.
 
"Throughout indoor season until now, Kendall has been doing a good job being a leader on our team and setting expectations for herself and her teammates," Woehl said. "It's good that she's doing that because it helps me work to be a better leader too. I think she's going to continue to excel in the jumps. Practice with Coach [Zach] Girard has been going really well; she had a little bit of an injury after indoor season, but now she's good to go."

MOVING ON UP
Here is a running list of all the new MSUB top-10 marks that have occurred this season.
 

Event	Rank	Time	Athlete	Meet	Date
400 meters	7	1:01.26	Madeline Severson	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022
400-meter hurdles	9	1:11.46	Annelise Clark	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022

         

Event	Rank	Distance	Athlete	Meet	Date
Discus	5	38.97m (127-10)	Ryann Moline	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022
Hammer Throw	10	38.42m (126-0)	Grace Jones	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022
Javelin	2	39.35m (129-1)	Ryann Moline	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022

 

Event	Rank	Time	Athlete	Meet	Date
110-meter hurdles	2	15.35	Bradley Graves	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022

Event	Rank	Distance	Athlete	Meet	Date
Hammer Throw	5	44.40m (145-8)	Forrest Cross	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022
Hammer Throw	6	43.32m (142-1)	Coen Guisti	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022
Shot Put	8	14.18m (46-6.25)	Braden Anderson	Yellowjackets/Battlin' Bears Icebreaker Open	3/19/2022

UP NEXT: MSUB track and field's stint at the Yellow Jacket Spring Open begins on Friday, March 25 with the hammer throw at 1 p.m. The action starts on Saturday at noon with the high jump, long jump, discus and the shot put; the 3,000-meter steeplechase kicks off the track action at 1:30 p.m. Livestream and live stat results can be found on both the men's and women's track teams' schedule pages at msubsports.com.