by Todd Burns
Daily Lobo
The UNM men's and women's track teams returned from Mountain West Conference competition with many outstanding results.
Keren Sari-Bentzur brought home the gold medal in the women's pentathlon, setting a school-record with 3,845 points, to go along with another first-place finish in the women's long jump with a leap of 5.82 meters.
Sari-Bentzur completed her competition by bounding 11.76 meters in the triple jump, good enough for a third-place finish, and landed fifth in the high jump clearing the bar at 1.67 meters.
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Sari-Bentzur was clearly UNM's most valuable athlete and the MWC recognized her achievement by giving her an award for the most points scored by an individual in the meet.
Sophomore transfer Bridgid Isworth maintained her No. 1 ranking in the MWC by placing first in the women's pole vault with a jump of 4.03 meters.
"I did all right," Isworth said. "I won, but I'm not jumping like I was at home so I was a little disappointed, but I'm training well and lifting heavy."
Isworth is capable of jumping over the automatic mark of 4.20 meters to send her to the NCAA national indoor track meet. Isworth has a personal best vault of 4.30 meters and has provisionally qualified for nationals with a jump of 4.03 meters. She has been suffering from Planta Facitis in her foot and has not been 100 percent this year, but she said she is "gearing up for nationals."
Junior Amanda Barnes set two school records. Barnes finished sixth in the shot put with a throw of 14.33 meters and tossed the old women's weight throw school record out of the books with a hurl of 15.17 meters.
Junior Jason Barkermeyer finished the meet with a personal best throw of 15.56 meters in the shot put, which was just out of scoring position.
Matt Gonzales finished third in the men's 3,000-meter race with a time of 8:41.00.
"He led the entire race," head coach Mark Henry said. "He was passed in the last 100 meters by BYU and Utah who had been chasing him the whole way."
Junior Chris Garofola's final time in the 60-meter dash was 6.97 seconds, finishing fourth. He ran the 200-meter in 21.93 seconds, finishing fifth.
Garofola predicted that UNM men's 4x400m relay would run down Brigham Young University this year but it fell short. BYU squeaked into first with a time of 3:15.27, UNM came in second with a time of 3:15.93.
"It was minus David Lloyd, who's red-shirting," Garofola said. "I think we can beat them in the outdoor on our own track. It's a real 400 meters, not these smaller tracks we've been running on and I'll keep talking shit until we beat them."
"We're just an outdoor oriented team," senior Nick Lott said.
Lott was a leg on the 4x400m team and finished seventh in the open 400-meter race crossing the finish line in 49.76 seconds.
The rest of the season will focus on the MWC outdoor meet, which will be held at UNM in May. Both the athletes and the coaches are optimistic about the up-coming outdoor season. The BYU women's and men's team took first place.
"We have some javelin throwers, some red-shirts and possibly, some football players to help us out," Henry said.
