Halfway done and still pushing through

On Saturday, the men and women’s track team competed in the Willamette Invitational down in Salem. Portland State came away only winning two events, but the final results on the last event showed the strong potential of this Viking team.

Starting off, sophomore Amber Rozcicha won the 5,000-meter, a race she has never ran before. However, not only did she win the race, but she also qualified for the Big Sky Championship, winning with a 32-second lead. According to assistant coach Cassie Stilley, she lapped about 20 percent of her competition to boot.

“We knew she’d be great at the event, and she proved that she can be strong in just about anything,” Stilley said.

The second event won by PSU was the women’s 4×100 relay race, in which the relay team finished with a time of 46.20. With this improved time, they move up to number one in the conference and set a new track record for the school. The relay team members are sophomore Geronne Black, juniors Joenisha Vinson and Anaiah Rhodes and senior Karen King.

A pleasant surprise, not only at this meet, but also throughout the season, has been sophomore Sean Mackelvie. Mackelvie started off the season by being a strong javelin thrower; he is number two in the conference, and has qualified for the Big Sky Championships. However, at this meet, he took a break from javelin and decided to try jumping. His two events were long jump and triple jump, where he finished third and second, respectively.

“We knew he would be strong in that event, but he’s turned out to be an excellent triple jumper as well.  Those are two very different events, and you don’t find many people that do that double,” Stilley said.

There were also quite a few other athletes who did well at this meet. Junior P’Lar Dorsett came in second in both the 100-meter and the 100-meter hurdles. Making her debut this weekend, junior Dominique Maloney, who transferred to Portland State this year, came in second in the 200-meter. Senior Andrew Slag improved his personal best in the 10,000-meter by 1:19 minutes. He finished in 11th, with a time of 31:20.90, and this new time moves him up to number four in the PSU record books.

Sophomores Brittany Long and Nate Lightner finished second in their events, the 3,000-meter steeplechase and the 400-meter hurdles, respectively. Also doing well are freshmen Shae Carso, who came in fourth in discus, and Allison Burkett, who placed second in javelin with a distance of 133 feet and seven inches, qualifying her for the Big Sky championships. Luke Leddige came in third in the 110-meter hurdles as well, finishing only .02 shy of the qualifying time.

“One of the things that’s going well for the team is how competitive the underclassmen are,” Stilley said. “Almost across the board, the sophomores have been making big improvements from where they were last year.  It’s great to have so many underclassman mixing it up with the veterans.”

It’s now halfway through the season for the Vikings, and they already have five men and six women qualified, in multiple events, for the Big Sky Championship. They also have 18 athletes in the top five of their events.

“Our performances this weekend should be an indicator of good things to come at conference, which is always the main goal,” Stilley said. “I think we are about where we expected to be at this time of year, or maybe even a little better.”

For their next scheduled meet, the Vikings will travel down to Sacramento State to compete in the Mondo Invitational on April 9. ?