The Utah Tech Women's Track and Field team will travel to Spokane Washington Friday, February 24th, and Saturday, February 25th to compete in the WAC Indoor Track and Field Championships at The Podium indoor facility. The Podium has only been open since the fall of 2021 but has already played host to several indoor track and field championship-level events including the 2022 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships.

The Trailblazers have run in the state of Washington for both the WAC Cross Country Championships (Spring 2021) and the WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships (2022). Both of those events were held in Seattle. This will be the first time the Trailblazers have run a meet of any kind in Spokane.

The Trailblazers come in with three athletes having posted top 20 conference performances (including altitude adjustments). In the 800-meter sophomore, Addi Wyatt posted the conference number eight time at 2:16.42 and sophomore Sadie Edwards is ranked 14th with a mark of 2:19.19. In the 60-meter hurdles, Ashlyn Parish holds the 17^th position on the conference list with a time is 8.84.
The meet will be run in a prelims and finals format for most races. The 60m all the way up to the mile along with the 60m hurdles will all hold one preliminary round on Friday with the top eight in each event moving on to the finals with the exception of the mile where 10 runners will advance. The 3,000m and 5,000m runs along with all field events and relays will all be straight to finals.

UTAH TECH COMPETITORS: The Trailblazers will open the competition Friday with 13 individual athletes competing along with one relay team across six prelims and two finals.
The first event will be the prelims for the mile run where Lexi Larsen and Mariah Skinner will be the first Trailblazers on the track. They will be followed by the shortest events of the day with Rashawnna Gibson, Mary Fallon, Alaynah Reed, and Ashlyn Parish running the 60 meters. The 60 hurdles will be next with Ashlyn Parish coming right back along with Megan Jenkins making her meet debut. Distance will then step up to the 400 meters with Megan Jenkins coming back alongside Kelly Denninghoff and Alaynah Reed in her second event of the day. The 800 prelims will include three Trailblazers led by Addi Wyatt and Sadie Edwards with Camilla Hamilton rounding out the event. The final prelim of the day will be the 200 meters with five UT athletes Mary Fallon, Alaynah Reed, Ashlyn Parish, Kelly Denninghoff, and Rashawnna Gibson.

The first day of competition will close with two finals. The first will be the 5,000-meter run. Shakayla Morgan and Kirstin Williams will both make their season debuts at that distance. Then the day will close with the DMR, a relay event that consists of legs at 1200m-400m-800m-1600m. The legs will be run by Addi Wyatt, Alaynah Reed, Sadie Edwards, and Lexi Larsen.

Day two will kick off for the Blazers with their lone field event of the meet with Kylie Bishop, Morgan Callens, and Lainee Leavitt taking flight in the high jump. Following the morning field events it will be finals on the track all day with any Trailblazers who qualify through from day one. The meet will then wrap up with two events that run straight to finals. Four women will contest the 3,000-meter run; Kirstin Williams, Lexi Larsen, Shakayla Morgan, and Mariah Skinner. The concluding event will be the 4X400 meter relay run for the Trailblazers by the team of Megan Jenkins, Addi Wyatt, Sadie Edwards, and Alaynah Reed.

WRAPPING THE SEASON: The Trailblazers come into the championship off a regular season that saw five school records go down and over 50 new entries into the program's top ten lists across nearly every event. Record-setting marks thus far have included Megan Jenkins running 59.98 in the 400 meters, Addi Wyatt posting a 2:17.94 mark in the 800 meters, Ashlyn Parish hitting 8.80 in the 60 hurdles, Kylie Bishop clearing 5' 1.75" in the high jump and a relay team of Megan Jenkins, Addi Wyatt, Kelly Denninghoff, and Alaynah Reed in the 4X400 with a time of 4:02.08. The trailblazers will look to improve further on those marks in their last indoor meet of the season.

UP NEXT: Following the final indoor showing of the year Utah Tech will shift focus to the outdoor season which will open March 10th-11th as Utah Tech hosts the inaugural Utah Tech Invite inside Greater Zion Stadium and will conclude at the WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Nacogdoches Texas May 11^th-13^th.