Sports briefs

UVU to Host First Ever GWC Basketball Championships

Utah Valley University was selected to host the first combined men’s and women’s Great West Conference Basketball Tournament, to be held March 10-13, 2010 at the 8,500-seat McKay Center, the league office announce Thursday.

All seven GWC men’s and women’s teams will compete in the post-season event, culminating with the first basketball tournament champion in Great West basketball history.

“This will be a great opportunity for our school, our community, and our program to set a standard of what this tournament represents,” UVU Director of Athletics Mike Jacobsen said. “Bringing 14 teams here for five or six days will be good exposure for our university and a strong economic positive for the community.”

Participating members of the GWC include Utah Valley, Chicago State, Houston Baptist, NJIT, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Texas-Pan American.

“We’re very excited to host the inaugural conference championships,” UVU head men’s basketball coach Dick Hunsaker said. “It takes a lot of time, work, and effort from the institution and the community to run a tournament like this.”

The Great West will begin its first season of double round robin basketball scheduling with men’s and women’s doubleheaders on Saturday, January 9, 2010 featuring Chicago State at Utah Valley.

UVU Breaks Another School Record at Blue & Orange Invite

Utah Valley University men’s and women’s track and field teams competed well at Boise State’s Blue and Orange Invitational Saturday as the Wolverines broke another school record, the women’s 4x400m relay.

“Overall it was a really good meet for us today,” UVU head track coach Scott Houle said. “We knew coming into the event that we would face good competition and be able to compete at a wonderful facility and our kids definitely performed well. We are slowly starting to get ourselves geared up and ready for the conference championships in the beginning of March.”

Members of the women’s 4x400m relay team, Chelsea Baker, Zandrea Nelson, Jessica Wortley and Tierra Zaugg set a new school record on Saturday by just over five seconds off the previous time. The Wolverines placed third overall in the event with a time of 3:52.44. UVU’s Jazmine Wittman was able to finish first in the women’s 60m dash for the second consecutive meet and she finished with a time of 7.81. Utah Valley finished the women’s 60m dash with four sprinters placing in the top six. Amanda Morse placed third, Natasha Martin fourth, and Zandrea Nelson sixth.

In the women’s mile, Utah Valley had four athletes that finished in the top 10 as Karinne Bentley led the way placing third, Shelise Walker finished fifth, Mary Nothum eighth, and Kalina Zufelt 10th. In the women’s shot put, Nicole Knighton finished second with a throw of 44′-06.25″.

The Wolverine men were led by distance-runner Jared Keller who won the men’s 3000m run with a time of 8:42.39. Fellow distance-runner Danny Moody finished in the event right behind Keller, placing second. Keller also led UVU in the mile run, placing third in the event with a time of 4:16.69. Following behind Keller in the mile run was teammate Tim Rowberry, who finished fourth.

At the Blue and Orange Invitational, UVU competed against athletes from Boise State, Nevada, Utah State, Idaho State, Northwest Nazarene, Concordia, Mesa State, Eastern Oregon, and Warner Pacific.