Willamette Invite: Salem, Ore.

 

SALEM - The general weather theme for the 2008 outdoor season continued this weekend at the Willamette Invite in Salem on Friday, April 4th and Saturday, April 5th. With the temps hanging in the high 40's to high 30's on Friday night and high 30's to low 40's all day Saturday with frequent rain showers and wind. Despite the chilly weather, EOU had several fine performances and the majority of the team competed well.

 

Friday: "Celebration of Distance Carnival" and the Hammer

 

Despite an early Friday departure and a roughly six hour trip, EOU had a number of athletes compete well and several strong marks including one NAIA National "A" standard, one "B" standard and one near miss on the track.

Hammer: the Men's hammer started out the day along with the "C" heat of the 5k at 3 p.m. Despite poor ring conditions, wet and often muddy, the Mounties placed three men in the top six individuals: Quinten Baxter in 3rd, Andy Munsy in 5th and Jason Dunten in 6th.

The Women's hammer followed the men and Trisha Harshberger led the way for EOU with a 4th place finish.

 

5,000 meters: The Track events started off with the 5,000 meters, with Christy Pletan surviving a collision with another runner just short of the finish to win the first heat of the night; in her first ever 5k on the track. Christy also ran 15 seconds faster than she ran in the Cross Country season.

Next up was a heat of the men's 5k, and EOU'S Carlos Quintana ran a very strong race to knock one minute and 14 seconds off of his 5K Cross Country PR in his first venture onto the track over the 5,000 meter distance. In a later heat, both Justin Dean and Doug Benson ran life time 5K PR's as well.

The final 5k run for EOU on the night was Marcella Bosch in the fast heat. Marcella smashed her PR of 18:05.35 and easily surpassed the NAIA "A" Standard of 18:05.50 with her time of 17:48.62.

 

10,000 meters: Women; Katie Clapp was the lone EOU entrant in the tough event and while she competed well on her way to a 5th place finish, was feeling the affects of a half marathon two weeks ago and an illness over spring break.

Men: Morgan Saltenberger led the way with a huge 10k PR despite a back pain that has been bothering him the last week or so and that flared up again during the race.

 

Steeplechase: Women: Stephanie Windle, back on the track after a year off ran a solid race to surpass the NAIA "B" standard.

Men: Cam Starner ran perhaps one of the best races of the meet to finish 3rd, crushed his PR and missed the NAIA "B" standard by less than a second.

 

1500: Freshman Jeff Roy and Fernando Morales both ran PR's in a rough field.

 

800 Meter Invitational: There was only one heat of each gender in the 800 on Friday night, and EOU"S Adam Goulet almost stole the show as he took the field out strong and nearly hung on for the win, finally finishing 4th in a very tight finish (less than a ¼ of a second between first and fourth).

 

Saturday: More Chilly Temps and Rain to Boot:

 

Field Events: the weather really wreaked havoc with the field events on Saturday, with delays to clear standing water out for the rings and many slipped in the jumping events.

 

Throws: EOU struggled all day in the Shot, Javelin and Discus (as did pretty much everyone). EOU'S top finishes came in the Javelin with Lane Bailey finishing 5th and Grace Deboodt finishing 6th.

 

Jumps: The Triple Jump highlighted all of the field events for EOU with Kirk Miller placing second overall, surpassing the NAIA "B" standard, by a mere ½ of an inch and climbing to #2 on the EOU all time list, just 7.5 inches off of Damien Johnson's school record from 2004.

 

Peter Fry also jumped well to finish 7th in the event. Both Alexa Loscutoff and Courtney Schmidig jumped ell in the Triple Jump as well.

Other jump highlights were Shauna Dahlin (formerly Nelson) out of Powder Valley HS, finishing a tie for second in the High Jump, although a slip and a resulting leg strain, cost her both a shot at winning the event and prevented her from running the 100 hurdles later in the day. Mary Wright continues to put things together in the Pole vault after a three year layoff and she jumped about a foot higher than three weeks ago in her last meet for EOU, the NNU Invite.

 

Track Events: Here again, things were hampered considerably by the weather, but EOU had a number of good performances and some surprisingly good marks.

Among those strong performances, were the men's 4 x 100 (Truman, Schmidt, Ohmes and Wise) finishing second , despite big Nathan "Husky" Schmidt having to slow up and dodge another teams dropped baton rolling around in his lane at the beginning of the second leg. Schmidt also teamed up with Hoppie, Goulet and Wise on the 4 x 400 to finish third overall and first in the second heat of the 4 x 400, but due to a foul up at check in time, they were not in the official results, despite running a solid 3:24.5 hand time.

Other strong track performances for the men were Zach Heath in the 800 (second in his heat and 8th overall) who ran strong from the gun, and Jeff Roy who finished second in his heat as well. Gary Truman ran a life time PR in the 100 meter dash, despite really awful sprint weather and Lucas Ohmes ran a very strong 200 to win his heat. Ohmes tore up the corners on Saturday as he ran third leg to put EOU into contention in the 4 x 100 and propel himself into the lead in his heat of the 200.

For the women, the track was pretty rough on Saturday, although the women's 4 x 100 improved on their season's best, despite not having Kasie Gillespie this weekend. Dani Murphy ran a good strong 100 and Christy Pletan doubled back from the night before to run a strong 800 and finish second in her heat. Very fine weekend of racing for the young Freshman from Montana.

 

Next Up

 

Saturday the 12th of April the EOU Track and Field Team will host Northwest Nazarene and Treasure Valley Community College. Field events start at 10:00 a.m. and running events at Noon.

 

 

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