Montana
Sacramento State
Hall cruises to heptathlon victory
4/8/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Outdoor Track, Women's Track and Field
April 8, 2011
University of Montana sophomore Lindsey Hall won two of Friday's three events to win the two-day heptathlon Friday afternoon at the Mondo Mid-Major Challenge at Sacramento, Calif. Hall finished with 5,169 points to record her first career heptathlon victory.
Hall entered the day with the lead and was never seriously threatened.
She went 18-4.5 to finish second in the long jump to eventual runner-up Mariah Rogers of Sacramento State, who went 18-10, then had the day's best javelin throw and 800 meters.
Hall threw 121-10 in the javelin, 20 feet off her career best but nearly 20 feet better than anyone else in the field, then ran a 2:28.24 to win the 800 meters by over five seconds.
Hall's score was fewer than 100 points shy of her career-best 5,255, which she set last May with late-season form at the Big Sky Conference outdoor championships, and 130 short of Suzanne Krings' school record of 5,299 from 2003.
That she scored as well as she did with early-season form portends good things for May and June.
"Everybody is happy with where Lindsey is right now," multi-events coach Adam Bork said.
"She looked like an early-season long jumper, but she still went 18-4, and she was throwing in the high 130s in her warm-ups in the javelin, so that event is looking good.
"In the 800 her splits were right where they have been in training. The last 200 looked easy, which tells me her fitness is way ahead of where she was last year at this time.
"I'm happy with that score this early in the season."
Rogers finished second with 4,781 points, while Sac State's Naima Goodwin was third with 4,741.
Senior Chris Hicks joined Hall in having a solid early-season showing. He scored 6,499 points to finish fifth in the decathlon, his first full decathlon in nearly two years.
Hicks did not finish better than fourth in the six-athlete field through the day's first four events, but he concluded the decathlon with the day's fastest 1,500 meters time of 4:39.35.
And he posted marks in all 10 events, something Bork was looking for.
"Chris is maybe a little disappointed with some of his marks, but he's happy to get through the whole thing with 10 decent marks," Bork said.
"Technically he looked good, so as we move into less volume and work more on speed and explosion, he could definitely hit 7,000 points by conference."
Hicks had marks of 16.92 in the 110-meter hurdles, 117-8 in the discus, 13-3.5 in the pole vault, 169-1 in the javelin and 4:39.35 in the 1,500 meters.
Senior Evan Stokken no-heighted in the pole vault and did not start the 1,500 meters, which overshadowed an otherwise excellent day-two performance.
He opened with the day's second-fastest hurdles time of 15.69, then went a career-best 121-11 in the discus to also finish second in that event.
After no-heighting in the pole vault, Stokken won the javelin with a career-best throw of 181-7.
"Evan is looking good as well," Bork added. "His throws are looking a lot better.
"He may not score 7,000 points, but he has the potential to get up there and score some decent points at conference."
Sacramento State's Sam Schur won the decathlon with 7,292 points. He was followed by Wichita State's Austin Bahner, who scored 7,018, and Fresno State's David Deal, who scored 6,682.
A handful of athletes were scheduled to compete in Friday night events. Those performances will be detailed in Saturday's recap.
For immediate satisfaction, live results are being updated here: http://www.hornetsports.com/livestats/track/meet/
