EOU Invite: Warm Weather Helps a Few Break Out

Competing at home for the second time this outdoor season, the very fine weather conditions helped several EOU athletes have some break out performances, especially in the jumps.

Field Events
Jumps:
In the long jump, three EOU athletes jump all time PR's. Gary Truman jumped more times over 20 feet today (5 out of 6 jumps) than he has in his entire career, including a 20' 7.5" PR. Truman was surpassed by EOU teammates Peter Fry, who also jumped a PR at 21' 1.25". However, freshman standout Kirk Miller won the event with a PR 22'10.5" to surpass the NAIA B (provisional) qualifying mark in his second event of the season, he hit the B standard in the Triple Jump last week.

On the women's side, Courtney Schmidig surprised herself by jumping a PR 15' 7.5". In the Triple Jump, it was another fine day for EOU, this time with Fry turning the tables on Miller with a big PR of 46'2.5" (surpassing the B qualifier). Miller jumped another fine jump with a 45' 5.5" jump. For Fry it was a 1 foot 8.5" PR. Outstanding day for the Grad Student from Washington.

Once again for the women, Schmidig had a fine day jumping a strong 34' 2.5" seasons best. The High Jump was good to EOU with a pair of wins for EOU jumpers from Powder Valley, Justus Gray and Shauna Dahlin, both winning in season best performances and both having good jumps at what would have been PR heights.

In the Pole Vault, Lucas Ohmes had a strong day to lead all male vaulters with a winning jump of 14'6" that is deceptive, as after he cleared the winning height, he had the bar moved up to 15'7" (the NAIA A standard) and had several good attempts there. For the women, Mary Wright jumped a seasons best 9'0, very nearly clearing a PR 9'6".

Throws:
In the Javelin, Joseph High Standout Lane Bailey had a solid day as he continues to refine his technique as he just missed the NAIA B standard of 183'0" when he threw a season best 182'10".
For the women, basketball standout Tiffany Ulmer threw a collegiate best 125' 8" and came back with solid efforts in the Shot Put and Discus.

In the Shot, Discus, and Hammer, EOU had a bit of a rough day, but several athletes recorded a seasons best including Quinten Baxter and Rachel Jackson in the Shot and Marybeth Nash and Trisha Harshberger in the Hammer. Trisha's throw being a PR and just off the NAIA B standard. All in all a promising day, considering the very hard training cycle the throwers are currently in.

Track Events
Sprints:
While the hopes were high with the warm weather, things were slowed down a bit by a wind that sprung up during the middle of the meet. Despite some disappointing times, the athletes, by and large competed well in the sprints, including a 1, 2, 3 sweep in the 100 meters led by streaking senior Nathan Schmidt. Nathan also won the 200 and led a 1-4 EOU sweep in that event.

In the relays, while the seemingly victorious EOU "A" squad ended up getting disqualified for a zone violation, EOU had a good showing with the EOU "B", close on the heals of the "A", squad ended up with the win. In the 4 x 400 relays, both the men and the women's race, EOU divided the teams up into a number of squads (3 women's relays and 5 men's relays) and a good number of athletes performed well.

Hurdles
The high Hurdles highlighted the day for EOU with Chris Hoppie winning big in the 110 Hurdles in an NAIA "B" time of 15.22 for the win by 1.26 seconds! Cora Beach continues to put things together well and raced extremely well for the win in the women's 100 meter hurdles.

Distance Events
The 1500 highlighted the distance events for EOU with wins in both genders and an outstanding run in the men's race by Doug Benson who recorded a huge PR (6 seconds), ran an NAIA B qualifier and perhaps the fastest 1500 by an EOU runner, at least in the past 17 years on the EOU track. Stephanie Windle led the women's race wire to wire and had a very good day overall as she ran a strong 800 and 4 x 400 relay leg later on.

In other distance action, freshman Jeff Roy led the 800 pretty much from the gun and held on to win. A gutsy performance for the former Idaho 1A state 800 meter champ. Fernando Morales and Carlos Quintana both ran well in the 800, with Quintana dominating his heat from the gun to run a life time PR (to add to the PR he set in the 1500 earlier in the day).

Marcella Bosch and Christy Pletan ran well in the fast heat of the 800 as well, while Chelsee Harmon worked well with unattached Kyle Janssen to go one two in the 2nd heat of the 800.
In the 5,000 meter run, Kendra Stone, in her first meet since Cross Country season ran a strong, patient race to finish second.

Summary and What is Next
All in all a pretty good day, especially given the workloads of all the athletes right now, both in practice and in many cases in this meet. EOU will now take a weekend off and be back in action on April 26th in Gresham at Mt. Hood Community College for the Mt. Hood/Concordia Open- site of the 2008 Cascade Conference Championships in mid May.

Mounties All Access Video

Meet Results