Cougars head to New Mexico; Roth and Colwick stuck in Seattle...

Washington State University travels to Albuquerque to compete in the UNM Cherry & Silver Invitational at the Albuquerque Convention Center, hosted by the University of New Mexico, site of this year's USA Indoor Track & Field Championships.

The meet will feature a rare event in the indoor track world: 400m hurdles races. Friday evening field schedule shows men's pole vault plus men's and women's long jump, high jump weight throws with 200m dash, 600m and 400m hurdles races.

The remaining events take place Saturday beginning at 9 a.m., with collegiate teams from WSU and California joining host New Mexico, who are using their series of home meets to show the NCAA that they are worthy of hosting the collegiate championships in 2014.

Courtney Zalud (left/photo by Paul Merca), a Pac-10 finalist last year for the Cougars, will run the 800 meters Saturday.

“They have an outstanding venue", said WSU head coach Rick Sloan of the Albuquerque Convention Center venue.

"They have held collegiate meets there over the years but they have also hosted the US Indoor Championships. We are looking forward to seeing different colored uniforms. This should be a good competition for us. We are only taking 26 athletes, men and women, and its at altitude so it favors the sprints and maybe the jumps but not the distance runners and we aren’t taking any to this meet."

Here's more with Sloan, courtesy of WSU Athletics.



WSU's complete release is available here, along with the list of athletes competing.

Former Husky Scott Roth, along with his training partner, former NCAA champ Jason Colwick, were the victims of the snow storm that hit Western Washington, as they were unable to leave Seattle to compete in Friday's elite section of the Pole Vault Summit in Reno, Nevada, according to Becca Peter of polevaultpower.com on the site's Twitter page.

However, Mountlake Terrace resident, and current American record holder Brad Walker will make his 2012 season debut, as he looks to rebound from a disappointing 2011 season.

polevaultpower.com will post play-by-play of Friday night's elite section on its web site.

NOTE:  The sports information office at Washington State University contributed to this report.

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