Track & Field

Season Review

The 2020 BYU men’s track and field season featured breakout and record-setting performances in addition to a second-straight MPSF Indoor Championship. With the team in Albuquerque, New Mexico, preparing to compete the next day at the NCAA Indoor Championships, the season and outdoor season were abruptly canceled due to circumstances regarding the spread of COVID-19.

Six Cougar athletes had qualified for the NCAA Championships, including Talem Franco in the mile, Zach McWhorter in the pole vault and the distance medley relay of Matt Owens, Colten Yardley, Michael Bluth and Franco. Each athlete was named a USTFCCCA All-American for being NCAA qualifers.

“It’s very surreal,” said BYU director of track and field Ed Eyestone. “These are unprecedented times we’re living through. The decisions being made now in terms of shutting things down are saving lives so that’s very important. Obviously, when they were first being shutdown it was very disappointing. We had our team down in Albuquerque, New Mexico, getting ready for the indoor championships. We were very excited about our prospects. Our athletes had worked so hard to get in a position to compete at the national meet.

“For our student-athletes, particularly our seniors, this was going to be their swan song and it’s a culmination of their collegiate dreams; to have that cut off was very disappointing. I was proud of our athletes, the way that they took that on. Talem Franco, who is No. 3 all-time in the mile at BYU and had a chance to do something special, put on his uniform that he was going to compete in, and went with his teammates on a 12-mile run along the Rio Grande River. I’m so proud of them for making the best of a really tough situation.”

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In the opening meet of the season at the BYU Indoor Invite, McWhorter had an impressive debut, winning the pole vault with a mark of 5.52m/18-1.25 for the No. 4 all-time mark in BYU history.

The next week the Cougars finished second at the Air Force Invitational and McWhorter improved on his performance from the previous week, winning the pole vault and moving up to No. 2 on the BYU record board with a mark of 5.55m/18-2.50. The men turned in a strong overall team effort to take second place at the meet. In addition to McWhorter winning the pole vault, there were six other individual or relay champions.

McWhorter raised the bar one more time the next week at the Dr. Sander Invitational in New York, clearing 5.61m/18-04.75 to improve on his No. 2 mark. At the end of the 2020 season, his mark was seventh-best in the country. Brian Matthews had a strong weekend as well, winning the heptathlon with a score of 5,320 points.

Franco had a big day at the UW Invite on Feb. 1 as he claimed the No. 3 mile time in BYU history. He clocked a time of 3:58, becoming just the sixth Cougar to run a sub-four-minute mile.

In Seattle again two weeks later, Heslington claimed the No. 3 spot in the 5,000m with a time of 13:39.05 while Garnica claimed the ninth spot with a time of 14:05.97. At the Texas Tech Shootout that weekend, Rickey Fantroy Jr. moved up to No. 7 in the triple jump at BYU with a mark of 15.50m/50-10.75.

The Cougars finished the season strong, winning the MPSF Indoor Championships with 80 points, narrowly edging second-place Arizona by four points. Garnica won the 5000m with a time of 13:52.92 while Franco took first in the 800m with a personal-best time of 1:49.89. Fantroy Jr. won the men’s triple jump with a mark of 15.50m/50.8, edging out the second-place jumper by a single centimeter. Bluth was BYU’s fourth individual champion at the meet, winning the 400m with a season-best time of 46.66.