Vikings head to Ducks’ pond

This weekend the track and field team will be traveling down to Eugene for the second time this season to compete in the Oregon Relays. The last two remaining meets of the season before the Big Sky Outdoor Championship, May 11–14, will be held at the University of Oregon.

For those who want to follow the meet from the Portland area, live stats will be posted on the Duck’s athletic website, goducks.com.

Due to her success last weekend at the Mt. Sac Relays in Sacramento, Calif., the Big Sky Conference awarded PSU junior Joenisha Vinson the Athlete of the Week award for women’s field.

Vinson’s final score was 5,277 points, which is a new best score for her career by 223 points and is the second best in the PSU record books. With this score, she accomplished her goal of getting qualified for the Big Sky Outdoor Championship. The NCAA has Vinson ranked at 19 and 39 in the West region for this year’s season in the heptathlon and 100-meter hurdles, respectively. She also sits as the top ranked competitor in the conference. Her combined score was only 130 points away from beating former Viking Robin Unger’s top score of 5,356 points.

Vinson started off the first day strong, taking the competition by surprise in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.84 seconds, earning her 1,003 points. This not only broke her own school record, but also was the first time any PSU athlete has scored over 1,000 points in a given event.

Vinson continued scoring highly with 712 and 608 points in the high jump and the shot put, respectively. Her shot put throw of 36.7 feet was her second personal record made. She then concluded day one with the 200-meters where she recorded her second best career time of 25.04, giving her 883 points.

By the end of the day she had set a new personal record for the most points scored in one day, her first day total being 3,206 points, a smashing 154-point improvement.

On day two, she threw a new PR by 15 feet, with a mark of 119-9 in javelin. She also had a new season best in the long jump, recording a leap of 18-5 1/4.

As a whole, the team has five athletes ranked in the NCAA West region top 48, four of which are the women’s 4×100 relay team, ranked 32. The relay team of senior Karene King, junior Anaiah Rhodes, sophomore Geronne Black and Vinson are also ranked, with exception to Rhodes, in other events. King and Black sit at 38 and 35, respectively, in the 100-meter run. The other Viking ranked is junior Sean Mackelvie at 14 for the men’s javelin.

Last year at this meet, junior Tony Crisofulli ran a new PR in the 800-meters and the women’s 4×100 relay won their event as well. Hopes are high that this upcoming meet will bring the same luck, if not more, as the Vikings have qualified more athletes for the Big Sky Outdoor Championship this year. ?