Two Wildcats nab Player of the Week honors
The Big Sky Conference announced last week that Weber State athletes Mike Hardy of the cross country team and Kaceelyn Pouttu of the women’s golf team had both earned Player of the Week honors.
Hardy was named co-Player of the Week along with Northern Arizona’s Matt McElroy after finishing in second place at the Utah Open Invitational with a time of 19:14.7 on the 6k course. He finished 0.2 seconds behind first place finisher David Elliott of Boise State. Hardy was in a battle for second place again in his next race at the BYU Invitational, before having to pull out of the race roughly 800 meters from the finish line.
Pouttu became the third member of the Wildcats women’s golf team to earn Player of the Week honors this season after finishing in second place at the rain-shortened Hobble Creek Fall Classic. Her two-over-par score of 144 helped lead WSU to a fourth place finish at the tournament.
Pouttu shared Player of the Week honors with Idaho’s Leilanie Kim, who tied for ninth place at the Colonel Wollenberg Ptarmigan Ram Classic. Kim is the first Idaho Vandal to win Big Sky Player of the Week honors since Idaho left the conference in 1996. The Vandals rejoined the Big Sky Conference over the summer.
Volleyball drops three matches at Wyoming Invitational
Coming off the heels of an 0-3 finish at the Air Force Invitational, the Wildcats continued their slide as they finished 0-3 at the Wyoming Invitational last weekend.
Weber State dropped their first match of the tournament to Furman, losing in five sets (25-21, 12-25, 25-21, 20-25, 10-15). The loss marked the third time in the season that the Wildcats lost in five sets.
The Wildcats did not have better luck on the second day of the tournament, as they were swept in three sets by Wyoming (21-25, 20-25, 11-25) and Gonzaga (22-25, 15-25, 22-25). The losses dropped Weber State to 2-8 on the year.
The lone bright spot from the tournament came from freshman outside hitter Amanda Varley, who was named to the All-Tournament team after recording 29 kills and nine blocks through the teams’ three matches.
Weber State will compete in the Lone Star Invitational this weekend, before starting conference play next week when they host Montana on Sept. 25.
Men’s golf finishes in tie for first place at Omaha invitational
The Weber State men’s golf team had its best finish of the season on Tuesday, as they tied for first place at the University of Nebraska, Omaha Invitational.
The Wildcats as a team finished with a score of 894, tying them with host Omaha for first place.
Junior Devon Purser led the Wildcats in the tournament, finishing in a tie with Oral Roberts’ Scott Newell for third place individually with a three-over-par score of 219. Colton Dallimore recorded the second best score for Weber State with a seven-over-par score of 223, which placed him tied for eighth place with Andrew Huseman of Indian Hills Community College.
The Wildcats will now be off until early October, when they travel to Park City for the Utah OGIO Invitational.
