GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.  Western Colorado's men's and women's track & field teams continue the early stretch of the outdoor season with a trip to the Colorado Mesa University Track & Field Complex for the Thu.-Fri. Maverick Invite #2.

Thursday's schedule on the track is brief – only in the number of events, though – as the 3,000-meter steeplechase and the 5,000m run will circle the oval.

Conversely, the field events will post a full schedule that includes the hammer throw, javelin, pole vault, and long jump events.

Friday's track events run from the sprints up through the 1,500m run, while the competitors in the discus, high jump, triple jump, and shot put complete the field events schedule.

Indoor All-American Emma Kjellsen will be making her first appearance in the outdoor season, running in Friday's 1,500 after placing 15th in the mile at the mid-March NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championship meet.

Oliver Diaz, the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference 2025 Freshman of the Year in cross country, on Friday takes on the first 5,000m race of his collegiate career. He earned first-team all-conference honors in cross country with a 13th-place finish in the 8-kilometer race back in the fall.

Sprinters Nellie Wartanian and James Duncan will put the pedal to the metal in their events. Wartanian, who has posted the 10th-fastest 200m time in the RMAC this season, will also compete in the 100m dash as well as run one of the legs of Western's 4x100 relay.

Duncan has posted the third-fastest time for the 110m high hurdles this spring and adds the 200 to his event schedule on Saturday.

In the longer hurdles race, Will Stone will try to improve upon his seventh fastest RMAC time in the 400 hurdles and will also compete without the hurdles in the 400m dash.

The throws will have a pair of Western standouts. Katrina Trahan has the fifth best RMAC mark in the women's discus and the 14th best conference mark in the hammer, while Logan Butterfield will compete in the men's javelin for the first time this spring along with the discus and the hammer, in which his early-season best throw ranks ninth in the RMAC.

UP NEXT
The Mountaineers will split their squad next weekend, with the sprinters heading to Canyon, Texas, for the Jo Meaker Classic at West Texas A&M, while the remainder of the team travels to Golden, Colo., for the Kit Mayer Classic at the Colorado School of Mines.