Canavan Collects WAC Field Athlete of the Week Accolade

Utah State Univesity's Joe Canavan collected the Verizon Wireless Western Athletic Conference Men's Indoor Field Athlete of the Week honor for the week of Feb. 8-14, announced Tuesday [Feb. 16, 2010] by the conference office.

 

Canavan, a junior from Palm Desert, Calif. (Palm Desert HS), set two personal records in winning the shot put with a distance of 17.44m (57-02.75) and taking second in the weight throw with a toss of 18.55m (60-10.50) at the Boise State Team Invitational over the weekend [Feb. 13-14]. Canavan's mark in the shot put ranks first in the WAC this season.

 

This is Canavan's first career WAC Field Athlete of the Week honor. It is also the first field accolade by USU after the Aggies collected three track awards in as many weeks with junior sprinter Mike Pyrtle (Feb. 9), junior middle distance runner James Allred (Feb. 2) and sophomore distance runner Brian McKenna (Jan. 27) all earning honors.

 

For this first time in four weeks, an athlete from another school besides Utah State won the track honor as Boise State sprinter Jeff Daw earned the honor this week, edging out McKenna's school-record 5,000m performance.

 

Daw, a freshman from Salt Lake City, Utah (Skyline HS), won the men's 400-meter dash at the Boise State Team Invitational on Sunday [Feb. 14] with a career-best time of 48.38, improving his No. 2 mark in the WAC in the event. The freshman also moved up to sixth in the WAC standings in the 200-meter dash after a career-best mark of 21.99, and helped his 4x400 relay team to a season-best mark of 3:17.21 which is also No. 2 in the conference.

 

Utah State will now have a week off in preparation before the entire Utah State track and field men's and women's teams return to Boise Feb. 25-28 for the WAC Indoor Championships.

 

Additional Aggie sports news is available at the Athletics homepage Web site.