PULLMAN, Wash. – Idaho’s Matt Wauters won the 35-lb. weight throw at the Washington State Indoor Open for the fourth straight year and broke the meet record for the second straight year Friday at Pullman, Wash.

Wauters, a 2007 NCAA All-American in the event, launched the weight 68-10, the second-best throw in the nation and fifth-best in the world this year, to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Championships. He broke his own meet record of 68-0¼ from a year ago.

Wauters has throws coach Julie Taylor excited because she hadn’t anticipated such a throw from an athlete who had been taking part in heavy workouts during the week leading up to the meet.

“We were kind of expecting him to be around 67 feet considering the amount of throws he had in,” Taylor said. “He’s really sore from training, so if that’s how he’s starting out, great things are going to come this year.”

While it was a great individual competition for Wauters it was even better for the men’s team, which took the first four places in the competition and had four throwers hit 60 feet in the same meet for the first time in school history.

Russ Winger, a 2007 NCAA qualifier in the event, finished second with a throw of 62-6½. Sophomore Ben Wood had a great performance as he took third with a personal-best throw of 61-4, nearly a four-foot improvement over last season. Senior Marcus Mattox added a toss of 60-3¾ to take fourth.

“We thought we’d have four kids over 60 feet by the end of the season, but having four of them do it at the very beginning is just great,” Taylor said.

For the women, redshirt freshman Nikita Amy launched the 20-lb. weight 47-3½ for a nine-foot improvement and a fourth-place finish. The Harrison, Idaho, native is in just her second season with the event and is showing plenty of promise, according to Taylor.

“She’s making great strides,” Taylor said. “I was thinking that if she threw over 45 feet, it would be a good start and she threw 47.”

With the meet being so early in the season, the throwers are training through the meet and aren’t throwing on their usual rest, so Taylor said she’s even more encouraged by the fact that all throwers are meeting and exceeding her early-season expectations.

“For them to throw this far at this point being kind of beaten up with the training, we feel like that is incredible,” Taylor said. “We knew these kids had the talent to do it, we just didn’t expect to see it this early in the year.”

The rest of the Vandal track & field squad will be in action Saturday morning at the remainder of the WSU Indoor Open meet. A trio of pole vaulters will also be in action at the UW Indoor Preview meet at Seattle, Wash.

Sixth Annual WSU Open Indoor Meet - 1/18/2008 to 1/19/2008
Pullman, Washington

Women Open Weight Throw Finals
1, Williams, Brittany, Montana, 15.89m, (52-01.75). 2, Garberg, McKenzie,
Washington St., 15.78m, (51-09.25). 3, Hacker, Taylor, Pacific Lutheran,
15.17m, (49-09.25). 4, Amy, Nikita, Idaho, 14.41m, (47-03.50). 5, Hale,
Martha, Unattached, 13.04m, (42-09.50). 6, Barnett, Anne, Idaho, 11.27m,
(36-11.75).

Men Open Weight Throw Finals
 1, Wauters, Matthew, Idaho, 20.98m*#, (68-10). 2, Winger, Russ, Idaho, 19.06m,
 (62-06.50). 3, Wood, Ben, Idaho, 18.69m, (61-04). 4, Mattox, Marcus, Idaho,
 18.38m, (60-03.75). 5, Bean, Curtis, Montana, 17.86m, (58-07.25). 6,
 MacArthur, Phil, Washington St., 17.10m, (56-01.25). 7, Rogan, James, Idaho,
 J17.10m, (56-01.25). 8, Ruud, Evan, Unattached, 16.92m, (55-06.25). 9,
 Mancuso, Chase, Washington St., 16.20m, (53-01.75). 10, Whitney, Beau, Idaho,
 15.63m, (51-03.50). 11, Stevens, Jake, Montana, 15.03m, (49-03.75). 12, Gill,
 Matt, Unattached, 11.76m, (38-07). 13, Nielsen, Jeff, Pacific Lutheran,
 11.73m, (38-06). --, Boling, Jacob, Idaho, FOUL.

*=Meet Record #=NCAA Provisional Qualifier