SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Stellar individual performances on Saturday at the 2025 Big Sky outdoor track and field championships powered Montana State's track and field teams to runner-up team finishes at Hornet Stadium.
Montana State's women finished second for the seventh consecutive conference meet, a stretch that dates back to the 2022 Big Sky outdoor championship.
The Bobcat women finished Saturday with 158.5 points, the second-largest total in program history behind only the 176 points scored in 2003—the last year they won the Big Sky title.
No. 28 Northern Arizona secured its fifth straight team championship on the women's side, scoring 222 points.
Montana State was head-and-shoulders above the rest of the field, with Montana a distant third scoring 100 points.
Montana State's men also finished second on Saturday, securing their fifth straight top-two finish at the outdoor Big Sky championships.
The Bobcats closed with 154 points, their fourth-most at the conference championships in program history.
Northern Arizona secured the team title, scoring 227.5 points. Third-place Montana scored 107 points, with fourth-place Weber State scoring 77 points.
Montana State added four event champions on Saturday in Sacramento, with wins in the men's pole vault (Colby Wilson), men's 1,500 meters (Harvey Cramb), men's 4x100-meter relay (Stryder Todd-Fields, Xavier Simpson, Drake Wilkes, Noah Barbery), and men's 4x400-meter relay (Michael Swan Jr., Stryder Todd-Fields, Nash Coley, Jett Grundy)
Wilson, a redshirt senior from Olympia, Wash., competing in his final Big Sky championship meet, won his fifth conference title in the pole vault.
The Big Sky's indoor and outdoor championship meet record-holder felt some late pressure from Montana's Carson Weeden, who cleared a school-record bar at 17-04.50 to put the onus on Wilson to clear another bar.
Wilson had missed once at 17-04.50 before passing, so had just two attempts available to try and clear 17-06.50. After a miss at that height, it came down to one last try to secure the gold.
The veteran came through, going up-and-over the bar to clinch his fifth championship title in the pole vault.
On the track in the first event on Saturday, the MSU men's 4x100-meter relay team of Stryder Todd-Fields, Xavier Simpson, Drake Wilkes and Noah Barbery electrified the crowd with a thrilling race, as Barbery's anchor leg powered the Cats down the final stretch to a win in 40.44 seconds.
The top five teams all crossed the line within a half second of one another, but it was the Cats who got the lean for the gold — the first men's outdoor 4x100 relay win from Montana State since 2012.
Less than 20 minutes later, Harvey Cramb pulled off a spectacular victory of his own, winning the men's 1,500-meter crown and de-throning 11-time Big Sky champion Colin Sahlman of Northern Arizona in the process.
Cramb, a sophomore from Brisbane, Australia, jumped out to the early lead and executed his gameplan to perfection, maintaining an advantage throughout the race and holding off Sahlman's kick with one of his own to secure the gold.
Cramb, who has run the No. 2-fastest time in school history and ranks No. 28 in NCAA Division I this year, is the first Bobcat champion in the event since Christian Soratos (2015).
Cramb followed up that emotional win with a gutty runner-up finish in the 800 meters a short while later, as Sahlman got a measure of revenge with the event title.
Cramb tied with junior thrower Elijah Jackman for the men's team-lead in points contributed this weekend, with each scoring 18 toward the Montana State total.
In the final event of the day, the men's 4x400-meter relay closed out the competition in resounding fashion with a gold medal-clinching race.
With legs run by Michael Swan Jr., Stryder Todd-Fields, Nash Coley and Jett Grundy, Montana State replicated its win in the event from the 2024 team title-clinching run, with Coley replacing the lap run by Janis Pohl last May in Bozeman.
Just like last year, it was Grundy on the anchor holding off Montana down the last straightaway to get atop the podium.
Todd-Fields walked away from Saturday with two gold medals running legs on both relays, adding a sixth-place finish in the 200 meters.
SATURDAY'S ALL-BIG SKY HONORS
- Jaeden Wolff was a points machine for the Bobcats, finishing second in both the 100 meters and 200 meters. The junior from Billings also ran a spectacular anchor leg on the women's 4x100-meter relay, nearly walking down Northern Arizona's anchor but settling for a thrilling second-place finish in that event. With the three medals on Saturday, Wolff has now earned eight career All-Big Sky honors, and finished the meet as the Cats' high-point scorer (18 points).
- The women's 4x100-meter relay squad of Caroline Hawkes, Peyton Garrison, Brooke Reuter and Jaeden Wolff finished second to earn silver.
- Caroline Hawkes, a junior from San Clemente, Califor., also finished second in the 400 meters on Saturday to earn her ninth career All-Big Sky award.
- Peyton Garrison, a junior from New Castle, Colo., finished third in the 200 meters to join Wolff on the podium in that event.
- Following up her second-place finish in the discus on Friday, sophomore Sydney Brewster placed third in the women's shot put on Saturday.
- Bozeman High product Jenavieve Lynch backed up her bronze in the weight throw at the indoor championships with another bronze medal in the hammer throw on Saturday in Sacramento
- Easton Hatleberg, a freshman from Grandview, Texas, finished second in the men's shot put. It capped a big week for the now two-time shot put silver medalist, who also scored points in the javelin (seventh) and hammer throw (fifth).
- Elijah Jackman, a junior from Tigard, Ore., finished second in the men's hammer throw one day after finishing second in the men's discus. It marks the fourth career All-Big Sky honor for the big man, and the third of 2025.
- Millie Hubbell, a junior from Littleton, Colo., placed second in the women's 100-meter hurdles to claim silver. It's the second career runner-up finish in the hurdles for Hubbell, who placed second in the 60-meter hurdles at the indoor championships in February. Hubbell also placed seventh in the 400-meter hurdles on Saturday.
THE RUNDOWN
- After running the anchor leg on the champion 4x100-meter relay team, Barbery placed fifth in the men's 100-meter final.
- Reuter placed eighth in the women's 100-meter final, backing up Wolff's second-place finish.
- In addition to running legs on both the champion 4x100- and 4x400-meter relay teams, Todd-Fields placed sixth in the men's 200 meters.
- Grundy finished fifth in the men's 400-meter final before running the anchor leg on the 4x400 relay winner.
- Tyler Gilman placed fifth in the men's 400-meter hurdles, with Coley placing eighth.
- Olivia Lewis finished fourth and Hubbell finished seventh in the 400-meter hurdles.
- Annie Kaul placed fourth in the women's 800 meters with a time of 2:08.00, tied for the second-fastest time in school history. Jada Zorn placed eighth.
- One day after winning his seconds straight 3,000-meter steeplechase title, Rob McManus finished fourth in the men's 1,500 meters behind his champion teammate Cramb. Sam Ells placed fifth to put three Bobcats in the top five in the event.
- Eva Koos finished sixth and Niamh Motley finished eighth in the women's 1,500 meters.
- Ells finished sixth and Owen Smith finished seventh in the men's 5,000 meters.
- Grace Gilbreth placed seventh and Kyla Christopher-Moody placed eighth in the women's 5,000 meters.
- Easton Hatleberg placed fifth in the men's hammer throw with a personal-best heave of 188-09. Elijah Jackman took the silver with a throw of 199-06.
- In addition to Lynch's bronze, Sydney Mattfeldt took seventh in the women's hammer throw.
- Jordan Lasher placed sixth in the men's pole vault behind champion teammate Wilson.
- Talon Holmquist placed sixth and Elijah Jackman placed seventh in the men's shot put as the Cats went 2-6-7 in the event.
- One day after finishing seventh in the men's long jump, Destiny Nkeonye finished fifth in the triple jump.
UP NEXT
Montana State will send a large contingent of qualifiers to the NCAA West First Rounds, hosted in College Station, Texas, from May 28-31.
The full list of qualifiers, which include the top-48 marks from both the West and East regions, will be announced on Wednesday.
Last season, Montana State sent a school-record 23 Bobcats to the NCAA West First Rounds.
