It has been a transition year for Fresno State track and field. Like all the other teams on campus, track and field had to adjust when the news came in that the university was shifting from the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) to the Mountain West Conference.
“We came out of the WAC making strides, heading up,” head coach Scott Winsor said. “This is a great move for Fresno State going to the Mountain West, but we were getting better, building depth and recruiting toward the Western Athletic Conference, then we switch over to the Mountain West and we’re kind of back to square one to be honest with you.”
Winsor said it has been a rough transition, most evident at the Mountain West Indoor Championship in Boise, Idaho.
“We got our lunch handed to us to be quite honest with you, indoors, but we didn’t have the best two days either,” he said.
Winsor cited numerous injuries and untimely illnesses as contributing to that rough weekend.
The biggest difference the Bulldogs have noticed between the conferences has been the depth of the Mountain West ”” something Winsor said will not be a bad thing once the team adjusts to the conference.
“It’s deeper in each event, and it’s deeper team wise,” he said. “That said, when you’re deeper in each event and you’re deeper team-wise, the points are spread out more.
“It takes time to build depth, but once you can get that, once you can start building some depth in each event, then it doesn’t take as many points to win a conference championship.”
However, the team has one last competition left before the Mountain WestOutdoor Championships in Las Vegas.
On Saturday, Fresno State will host the Bulldog Open at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High School and all throwing events will be held at Warmerdam Field at Fresno State.
“It’s a small meet. We just have a couple of teams coming in,” Winsor said. “We’re kind of banged up right now, so we’re going to want to get healthy is what we need to do.”
That means that some runners will get the day off, but Winsor does not expect things to look too different from normal.
“We’re going to sit some people. Not everybody’s going to be competing,” he said. “My people are going to compete. A vast majority of the sprinters and hurdlers are going to compete. We’ve got a little bit of a mix of trying to gets healthy, but at the same time, we’re trying to sharpen things up.”
One area where Winsor expects to see improvement is with the 4×100 relay teams.
“We’ve got a 4×1, both on the women’s side and the men’s side that have really run well throughout the year.” Winsor said. “We need to improve just a little bit to get into the NCAAs, same thing with the 4x4s.”
He said while they have run well, it is their handoffs that have been a concern.
“The exchanges haven’t been sharp and crisp, so we need to get those squared away,” he said.
The Bulldog Open will be Fresno State’s last-ditch effort to get things straightened out before facing much stiffer competition in the impending Conference Championships in two weeks and the NCAA tournament two weeks after that.
