 "Photo: Chris Soliz")
Instead of taking a whole team to the United Heritage Invitational, Texas will send just three heptathletes to the Jackson Indoor Arena on the campus of Boise State University this weekend.
While the rest of the UT track team won't be competing, for sophomore Shawn Schmidt, junior Andrew Webb and true freshman Kenny Greaves, this weekend will be far from a break. The trio will head to Idaho and compete in seven different events. The team is fortunate they're indoor events, since outside the highs will be slightly above freezing with a chance of snow.
"Going to Boise is a multi-event competition for us," head coach Bubba Thornton said. "We're hoping that the guys have a good performance so they'll have a lot of confidence heading into the conference meet."
This is a pretty rare occurrence. In fact, it takes two days to complete their seven events - so whenever the Longhorns have an opportunity to focus on the heptathlon, they take it.
"This meet gives them an opportunity to get some good head-to-head competition at an indoor heptathlon," coach Mario Sategna said. "They don't compete in a heptathlon every meet. Other meets they are tuning up for their individual events. So this meet is a good warm up for conference meet."
Sategna expects big things from Webb and Schmidt, who are proven multi-event competitors. Both were NCAA qualifiers in the outdoor decathlon last year, a virtual equivalent event to the indoor heptathlon.
"Both of these guys [Webb and Schmidt] have put themselves in position to be conference scorers and go to national meet," Sategna said. "They are going into this weekend with one thing in mind and that is to put up a high [NCAA] provisional mark. The good thing is, if things don't work out, we have another month to fine tune before conference."
Because they don't get to compete in the heptathlon every meet, it is important for the three Longhorns to meet the provisional NCAA standard, which qualifies them for the NCAA Indoor Championships in March and simultaneously prepares them for the upcoming Big 12 Championships.
"If we can do well this weekend, we can really set the tone and have confidence heading into Big 12 indoors," Sategna said. "This weekend is about creating opportunity, and the heptathlon is going to be a big scoring event for us at the Big 12 indoors."
So while only three Longhorns are competing this weekend, what happens in Idaho carries a lot of weight as the Longhorns prepare to compete for the Big 12 title in three weeks.
"[The three heptathletes] know they are going to be the cornerstone to us winning an indoor title," Sategna said. "We are expecting a lot of points from these guys. At the same time, they know they must take care of business one event at time."
On Friday, the Longhorns begin with the 60-meter run, followed by the long jump, shot put and high jump. They finish Saturday with the 60-meter hurdles, pole vault and 1000-meter run.
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