BOZEMAN, Mont. — It all comes down to this. 

The Montana State track and field team travels to Sacramento, California, this week for the 2025 Big Sky Outdoor Track & Field Championships, beginning Wednesday and continuing through Saturday at Hornet Stadium. 

The entire meet will be streamed on ESPN+. Access to the meet schedule, live results, heat sheets, and more can be found here on the championship central webpage. 

Action in the men’s decathlon and women’s heptathlon begins on Wednesday and Thursday, with prelims and finals in all other events contested on Friday and Saturday. 

“The teams are both confident based on their training, past success, and the quality outdoor season we have put together up until this point,” head coach Lyle Weese said. “They are really close and invested in a common goal which really raises their level of confidence and provides motivation to perform well for the team.” 

Last season, the Bobcat men won their first outdoor Big Sky championship since 2005, upsetting No. 11. Northern Arizona by a score of 186-185 in Bozeman.  

Yet, it’s perhaps the Montana State women that enter this week in Sacramento with a better chance at the trophy looking for their first championship since 2003. Armed with the best team the Cats have ever assembled, MSU is primed to give traditional power Northern Arizona a run for their money. 

Montana State’s women have set an astounding nine school records this season: 200 meters (Peyton Garrison), 1,500 meters (Kyla Christopher-Moody), 5,000 meters (Kyla Christopher-Moody), 3,000 meter steeplechase (Grace Gilbreth), long jump (Hailey Coey), shot put (Sydney Brewster), discus (Emma Brensdal), 4×100 meter relay (Reuter, Garrison, VanDyken, Wolff), and 4×400 meter relay (VanDyken, Garrison, Gandolfi, Hawkes). 

It’ll be a challenging week as both Lumberjack teams enter Sacramento as favorites after winning the team titles at the indoor championships on their home track in Flagstaff. 

However, the Bobcats are traditionally a better outdoor team with the addition of events such as the javelin, 400 meter hurdles, and steeplechase, among others. 

Prior to last May when the Bobcat men pulled the upset, Northern Arizona had won three Big Sky outdoor titles in a row–even with last year’s loss, NAU has won 12 of the last 17 Big Sky titles dating back to 2007.  

The Lumberjack women have won four consecutive outdoor championships and seven of the last eight. 

On the women’s side, USTFCCCA’s most recent Conference Rating Index has NAU in the top spot at 1,218 and MSU in the second slot at 1,149. Idaho State is the next-closest school in third at 711. On the men’s side, NAU is first at 1,370, MSU is second at 1,001, and Montana is third at 731. 

In the latest USTFCCCA Mountain Region Rankings, Montana State’s men were ranked No. 7 and Northern Arizona was ranked No. 5. 

On the women’s side, Montana State was ranked No. 4 and Northern Arizona was ranked No. 3. 

“We need to keep doing what we have been doing,” Weese said. “Don’t try to change things up. Just stay in our typical process, but stay on the gas pedal. It will be a balance between being aggressive while not trying to do anything out of character.” 

Here are some things to keep an eye on this week in Sacramento: 

MULTI’S KICK IT OFF 

The duo of Nicola Paletti and Mathias Mees will aim to replicate their 1-2 finish in Flagstaff and get the Bobcats off on the right foot competing in the decathlon on Wednesday and Thursday. Paletti has won three straight conference titles in the multis, earning the crown in the heptathlon at the 2024 and 2025 indoor meets and winning on his home track last May in the decathlon at the 2025 outdoor meet. The second-year Bobcat from Bolzano, Italy, is in rare air in Montana State history—he’s currently tied with 2024 Hall of Fame inductee Jeff Mohl with three Big Sky titles in the multis. One more gold medal would give him the most in program history. Mees, a native of Belgium, earned silver behind Paletti in the heptathlon three months ago and is favored to repeat. On the women’s side, a lot will fall on the shoulders of freshman Hailey Ells with three-time All-Big Sky performer and Second Team All-American Shelby Schweyen out with an injury. Ells will be competing in her first outdoor heptathlon. 

POLE VAULT POINTS 

Montana State has reigned at the top of the Big Sky in the pole vault in recent years, punctuated by a sweep of the podium on the men’s side in Flagstaff. Colby Wilson enters his final outdoor conference championships looking for his fifth Big Sky title. The redshirt senior from Olympia, Washington, is a three-time NCAA Championships qualifier, holds the Big Sky championship meet records both indoors and outdoors, and was named 2025 Big Sky Most Outstanding Performer at the indoor conference meet. Jordan Lasher, a freshman from Yelm, Washington, earned a silver medal in February and will aim to replicate that feat with bronze medalist and teammate Bob Hartley out of the running while redshirting this outdoor season. On the women’s side, three Bobcats enter this week ranked in the top-six led by Megan Bell, a freshman who is at the top of the conference this season after clearing 13-08.25 on Friday in Bozeman at the Tom Gage Classic to earn Big Sky Women’s Field Athlete of the Week honors. Bell ranks No. 3 in school history, with teammates Tatum Richards ranking No. 4 (13-06.25) and Libby Hansen ranking No. 8 (13-02.25). 

JUMPS BATTLE 

Hailey Coey and Eastern Washington’s Egypt Simmons are set for an electric showdown in the women’s long jump. Coey holds the Big Sky Conference indoor record with Simmons second all-time. Outdoors, Simmons holds the conference record with Coey in second. At the indoor championships in February, Coey beat her rival for the gold with an unforgettable walk-off winner in her sixth and final attempt. The Billings native currently ranks No. 10 in NCAA Division I after leaping 21-3.50 in Pocatello two weeks ago to re-break her own school record. On the men’s side, two-time All-Big Sky honoree Destiny Nkeonye will look for his elusive first gold medal while entering with the conference’s top mark (24-05.75). 

STEEPLE U 

The nation’s top-ranked men’s steeplechase group will look to continue its dominance in the event on Friday. After Duncan Hamilton won four straight conference titles from 2020-2023, Rob McManus is a heavy favorite to win his second straight gold medal and make it six straight years with a Bobcat on top. The three-time All-American is hoping to be flanked by Will Kelly and Owen Smith, who each have also run top-ten all-time marks in Montana State history this year in the event. On the women’s side, Grace Gilbreth is looking for another all-conference honor in her final outdoor Big Sky meet. The Bozeman native became the first Bobcat woman to break the 10-minute barrier with a school record at the Bryan Clay Invitational earlier this year, finishing in 9:58.84. 

GO THE DISTANCE 

Northern Arizona has established team dominance in the Big Sky thanks to arguably the best distance group in the country. At last year’s Big Sky Outdoor Championships in Bozeman, the Bobcat men were able to upset the 11th-ranked Lumberjacks on the back of the contributions of Ben Perrin and Matthew Richtman, who finished 2-3 in both the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters to help break up an onslaught of NAU points in the distance events. A big responsibility on the women’s side this year will fall on graduate student Kyla Christopher-Moody, who is enjoying perhaps the greatest season by an MSU woman’s distance runner in school history. The Michigan native has set four school records this year and placed third in both the 3,000 meters and 5,000 meters in February to break up what would have been nearly an NAU clean sweep of all the available points in both events. On the men’s side, a name to watch is 2025 Second Team All-American Harvey Cramb. The Australian sophomore is entered in the 800 meters, where he holds the school record, and in the 1,500 meters, where he ranks second all-time in program history. 

BREWSTER & BRENSDAL 

The star sophomore duo of Sydney Brewster and Emma Brensdal aim to repeat their 1-2 finish from Flagstaff in the shot put while also looking to do damage on the podium in the discus. Brewster has been one of the biggest stories of the season, breaking the Big Sky Conference record and school record in the event multiple times this spring while being named Big Sky Women’s Field Athlete of the Week three times in a row. Brewster ranks 17th in the country this season. Her Montanan teammate, Emma Brensdal, took silver at the indoor conference meet and enters this week ranked second in the conference in the shot put and second in the discus. The sophomore broke the school record in the discus earlier this year with a throw of 165-5, eclipsing the previous mark of 160-6 that had been held by her throws coach and MSU Hall of Famer Jen Allen since 2001. 

STACKING SPRINTS POINTS 

Montana State’s women will be counting on big points from their sprinters, with two of the best in school history in juniors Jaeden Wolff and Peyton Garrison favorites to potentially get on the podium in the 100 and 200 meters. The pair hold the two fastest 200 meter times in school history and two of the five fastest 100 meter races ever run, with freshman Brooke Reuter and long jumper Hailey Coey also trying to make their way into Saturday’s finals and score points. In the 400 meters, junior Caroline Hawkes has earned silver at the conference meet three straight times dating back to the 2024 indoor championships. On the men’s side, the Cats will try to scratch out points with a deep bench that includes Xavier Simpson, Stryder Todd-Fields, Malikye Simpson, Noah Barbery, and Drake Wilkes. The first four are all ranked inside the top five in school history in the 100 meters and three are ranked in the top five at MSU in the 200 meters, but will have an uphill climb competing against a loaded group of Big Sky contenders in the sprint events. 

RELAY REWARDS? 

All four of Montana State’s relay records have been broken this spring, with the men’s and women’s 4×100 and 4×400 marks all getting re-written across March and April. Last year, the men’s 4×400 meter relay team executed perhaps the biggest race in school history at the conference championships, winning gold with a Jett Grundy anchor leg that clinched a 186-185 walk-off win over NAU that led to an unforgettable track-storming. Three of the legs from that team remain, part of a general theme of consistency across all the relay squads. All four of Montana State’s relay teams have run either the first or second-fastest times in the conference this spring. If everything else goes perfect, one or both of this year’s outdoor titles could once again come down to the final event of the meet on Saturday afternoon—the 4×400 meter relay. 

#GoCatsGo