With a snowy spring, the setting for the Utah Spring Classic in Salt Lake City was a white infield and snow banks all around the track. But warmer weekend weather made for decent race conditions despite a wet track. The Trailblazers took advantage with another pair of team records on the day.

"The weather was a lot better than we expected," said head coach Derrick Atkins. "It really didn't have any effect on the races themselves. It did mess with our normal logistics for sure. We normally warm up on the infield but with it being covered in snow we had to find different places, and the space for team camps was smaller than normal. We were not even sure earlier this week if the meet would be able to happen. But the girls did a great job blocking out those external factors and just competing."

Coach Atkins also mentioned that they look at this meet as a building block for the season: "I told the ladies that we were going to work through the meet this week. What's important going forward is that we stay healthy and stay focused on the moment we are in and what needs to be done. We have a lot of ladies that want it really bad, we just can't look past what needs to be done today. This meet was a great building block after a very successful meet in Irvine last week and a meet coming up in two weeks at BYU."

IN COMPETITION: The meet got underway Friday night with a large Utah Tech contingent in the 5000. Like all distance races, times were slowed down by altitude, but several Blazers were able to post solid times in the race. Leading the pack was sophomore Lexi Larsen posting a time of 18:11.80. In the Saturday distance events the Blazers had six women in the 1500 and five in the 800. In the 1500 Junior Shakayla Morgan ran a meet-best 5:06.70 for the Blazers. And in the 800 Larsen ran a 2:16.00, a personal record, the second-best performance in team history, and a fifth-place finish on the day. Sophomore Sadie Edwards also ran a personal best of 2:19.16 good for fourth in team records. Sophomore Camilla Hamilton also ran a team top ten performance in 2:19.36 now sitting at 10th on the list.

The Sprints saw a pair of team records. Sophomore Rashawnna Gibson's 12.16 into a headwind is a new team record eclipsing her own record set last week at UC Irvine. She took fifth in the event while Sophomore Ashlynn Gilhula took sixth in 12.55. Sophomore Addi Wyatt has set a new team record in each meet this season, she was back at it again with a new top mark in the 400 of 57.01 taking fourth place in the meet. In the 200 Gibson tied her personal best and team number three all-time performance with a 25.51 in a fourth-place finish. 

The hurdles group had three runners in both the 100 and 400 versions of the events. In the 100 Sophomore, Emma Lloyd ran to a team's all-time 10th-best performance of 15.40 into a headwind. She was the team leader over the low hurdles as well with a 1:05.57 mark, also a team history 10th best time.

The other two events for the Trailblazers were their lone relay finish and lone field event. In the 4x400 the Blazers ran four teams. The "A" team of Sadie Edwards, Addi Wyatt, Kelly Denninghoff, and Alaynah Reed ran 4:53.68 taking  fifth place at the meet and establishing the new number-two all-time performance in the event. The "B" team took eigth in a team all-time fifth-best 4:05.63. In the high jump, Morgan Callens was the leading jumper with a first-attempt clearance of 1.50m (4' 11").

UP NEXT: The team will drive back up north in two weeks for the BYU Robinson Classic on April 22nd and will contest their final regular season meet the following week on the 28th and 29th back at UC Irvine in the Steve Scott Invitational.