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| Scott Gulledge / Scroll |
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After a two-day championship meet, BYU–Idaho track and field’s season came to a conclusion with the Spartans winning the 2006 Winter Semester title.
The Spartans finished the meet with 509 points. They were followed by the Thunder with 450, the Titans with 409 and the Hawks with 271.
The Thunder came into the championship as the favorite, having won three of the four meets.
However, the Spartans, who had finished last in their meet a month ago, managed to come through in the clutch.
So what does it take for a team that had not won a single meet during the regular season to somehow muster up the energy to win the championship?
“It was dedication,” said Spartan’s Jonathan Porter, a freshman from Centerville, Utah. “On all of the other meets, only half of the team could make it. They didn’t think it was a big deal, but it was hurting the team.”
In the championship meet, it was a different story. A lot more people were able to come and participate in the meet.
Porter also mentioned his coach Mike Menssen, a senior from Sandy, Utah, as a key to their season improvement.
“He was very dedicated,” Porter said. “He was pushing himself every track practice. He was a distance runner, but he would run sprint events because we were missing people.”
Menssen ran in a variety of events including first-place finishes in the 800, 1600, and 5000 meter runs.
Coaching by example, dedication and teamwork seemed to be the ingredients to the Spartans’ championship season.
