Feb. 24, 2007
SEATTLE, Wash. - On the strength of six individual and one relay crown, the Arizona State University women's track and field team captured the 2007 MPSF Indoor Track & Field Championship Saturday afternoon inside the Dempsey Indoor Facility in Seattle, Wash. The women scored 135 points to win their first indoor conference crown with Stanford finishing second with 96 points while the Washington men defended their title by scoring 109 points. The ASU men placed fifth overall with 79 points, just one half of one point behind Stanford for fourth place.
On Saturday, the women captured three individual and one relay title while the men recorded two individual titles. For the women, Sarah Stevens swept the throwing events by taking the shot put for the second year in a row, this time with a winning mark of 17.72m (58-01.75). Stevens, who also set a meet record for the second day in a row, earned an automatic berth into the national meet with her toss. Amy Hastings won the 3,000m run in 9:13.28 to record the second-fastest time in school history while recording an NCAA automatic qualifier.
Latosha Wallace had a hand in two titles, first by winning the 400m dash in 54.05, an NCAA provisional qualifying time, while anchoring the 4x400m relay to victory with a provisional time of 3:36.24. Wallace was joined on the relay by Bridgette Williams, Shauntel Elcock and Jacquelyn Johnson. On the men's side, Domenik Peterson took gold in the 400m dash with a time of 47.59 while Ryan Whiting won the shot put with an NCAA automatic mark of 19.71m (64-08.00). With their wins, the Sun Devils swept the 400m dash and shot put events for both the men and women.
The men and women each recorded three more provisional marks on the day with only one not coming in the distance events. For the men, Joshua Kinnaman scored 5,585 points to take second place in the heptathlon, taking second in the 60m dash with a personal-best 8.31 to pace him on the day. In the 3,000m run, Aaron Aguayo placed fourth and Kyle Alcorn fifth as both qualified for the NCAA meet, running times of 7:56.97 (second all-time at ASU) and 7:58.82 (third all-time at ASU), respectively. On the women's side, Jenna Kingma (9:28.05) and Ali Kielty (9:29.39) each provisionally qualified in the 3,000m run while Jessie McLaughlin also recorded a provisional mark in the mile run in 4:49.47 to take runner-up honors in the race.
Much like the team did outdoors last year while winning the Pac-10 Outdoor Track & Field Championships, the women scored points in bunches in several events, including 23 in the weight throw Friday morning, 18 in the shot put (Jessica Pressley placed second), 21 in the 400m dash (Williams was third and Elcock fourth) and 24 in the 3,000m run (first, third, fourth, seventh and eighth). Not only did the women also sweep both throw events with Stevens taking the weight throw and shot put titles, it also swept the silver medal with Pressley placing second in both.
The Sun Devils could send several athletes to one of three NCAA Last Chance Qualifying meets next weekend. If not, those Sun Devils that qualify will travel to Fayetteville, Ark., on March 9-10 for the 2007 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships to close out the indoor season.