Track & field
UTAH STATE: Utah State's Ryan Bruhn finished fourth and teammate Josh Sides placed seventh in the hammer throw to score points for the Aggies at the NCAA Regional Track and Field Championships Friday. Two other Aggies scored points on the first day of the meet as well.
Bruhn's fifth-place finish qualified him for the NCAA Championships, while Sides will have to wait for a decision by the committee to see if he will throw in Sacramento, Calif. in June. All top five finishers in each event qualify for the NCAA meet.
Bruhn, a junior, entered the meet with the fifth-best throw in the region at 62.37 meters during the season. His toss of 59.83 meters (196 feet and 3 inches) on Friday, scored five points tor the Aggies in the team race, but more importantly kept his season going as he finished fourth.
Sides entered the meet with the 10th-best throw in the region on the year and finished seventh at 59.49 meters (195-02) on Friday to score two points for USU.
Matt Price scored points for USU with a seventh-place finish in the high jump as he lept 2.08 meters (6-09.75) to add 1.5 points to the Aggies' team score. Justin Wickard, an Aggie standout in the 110-meter hurdles, qualified for Saturday's finals by placing seventh in his event in Friday's preliminaries.
WEBER STATE: Two Weber State athletes qualified for the finals in their respective events on the first day of the NCAA West Region Outdoor Track and Field Championship.
Joel Atwater advanced to the finals of the men's 1,500 meter run. Atwater was third in heat number three with a time of 3:47.82. It is the eighth fastest time out of the 12 finalists.
Wiley King ran a personal and season best 14.02 in the 110-meter high hurdles, advancing to the finals Saturday. It is the second time best in WSU school history, and was the sixth fastest time of the eight who qualified for the finals. King finished just ahead of Utah State's Justin Wickard (14.04).
Utah
VOLLEYBALL: Utah women's volleyball coach Beth Launiere announced the hiring of former Avila College (Mo.) head coach Jason Smith as an assistant. Smith served the past two seasons as an assistant coach at Ferris State University.
"Jason comes to Utah with a lot of experience and he's excited to be at the Division I level," Launiere said. "The combination of those two factors will be of real value to us."