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The University of Montana will compete at Eastern Washington's 37th annual Pelluer Invitational track meet this week at Woodward Field in Cheney, Wash.

The two-day meet begins Thursday afternoon with the multi-events. The women's heptathlon and men's decathlon conclude Friday morning, with the regular portion of the Invitational beginning Friday at 1 p.m. MDT.

The Pelluer will include five Division I schools (Montana, Eastern Washington, Washington State, Idaho and Gonzaga), plus Lewis-Clark State, Seattle University, the Community Colleges of Spokane and Whitworth. Over 300 athletes will be competing. Dual meet scoring will be kept between Montana, Eastern Washington and Gonzaga. (Washington State and Idaho will only be sending partial teams.)

“The weather is supposed to be better than what we had last Saturday (for the Al Manuel Invitational in Missoula), so that should help the sprinters,” Montana coach Tom Raunig said. “And we'll get to compete against some teams that we don't run into that often. It allows our athletes to go up against different people than they're used to.”

The men's decathlon starts everything at 2 p.m. Thursday. The women's heptathlon begins at 2:30 p.m. Thursday. Day two of the decathlon gets going at 9:30 a.m. Friday, while the second day of the heptathlon starts at 11 a.m. Friday.

The Invitational starts at 1 p.m. Friday with the throwing of the men's hammer. Running events begin at 5 p.m. with the women's steeplechase.

The Big Sky Conference qualifying standard for the decathlon is 5,500 points. The NCAA's automatic standard is 7,500 points, with the provisional standard set at 6,900 points.

Competing for Montana will be sophomore Chris Hicks and freshmen Clark Cranford and Christian Segota.

Hicks placed sixth in the heptathlon at the 2008 Big Sky Conference Indoor Championships. Cranford and Segota will both be competing in their first career decathlon.

The Big Sky Conference qualifying standard for the heptathlon is 4,100 points. The NCAA's automatic standard is 5,500 points, with the provisional standard set at 5,050 points.

Competing for the Grizzlies will be senior Baily Cox, the 2007 Big Sky heptathlon champion with 5,193 points, junior Amber Aikins and sophomore Megan Betz. All three athletes scored points in the pentathlon at the 2008 Big Sky Conference Indoor Championships, with Cox placing third, Aikins seventh and Betz eighth.

“The goal for the younger kids is to get through (the heptathlon and decathlon) and complete every event,” UM multi-events coach Adam Bork said. “That being said, I'm also expecting all of them to hit the Big Sky qualifying mark as well.”

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