May 26, 2004
Complete Release in PDF Format
TEMPE, Ariz. - The championship season gets under way for the Arizona State track and field program this weekend as members of the team head to the 2004 NCAA West Region Championships, May 28-29, in Northridge, Calif. The regional meet is used as a stepping stone to the national meet.
WHAT IS AT STAKE
A trip to Austin, Texas, for the June 9-12 running of the NCAA Outdoor Championships will be on the line this weekend as the Sun Devils compete in Northridge. Only the Top 5 individual event finishers and the Top 3 placers in the relay events will advance to the national meet.
LAST YEAR
The first regional meets were held a year ago with the Sun Devil women placing fourth with 55 points and the men sixth with 45 points at the meet held at Stanford. Lisa Aguilera (steeplechase), Tiffany Greer (long jump) and the 4x100m relay team each won titles for the women while the men were paced by Jason Barton winning the 400m dash.
WHERE THEY RANK
The Sun Devils rank high on the lists of declared athletes for the regional meet this weekend, including three men's events being led by Arizona State athletes. Lewis Banda (400m) and both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays are ranked No. 1 in the region with seven total marks ranking among the Top 5. For the women, seven marks also rank in the Top 5, led by Cassandra Reed, who is second in the 400m dash.
TEMPE 400
At the Pac-10 Championships (May 14-15), the Arizona State men's sprinters dominated in events involving 400m. The day opened with Steven Koehnemann, Domenik Peterson, Seth Amoo and Lewis Banda clocking a 38.97 (the second-fastest in the nation this year) to win the 4x100m relay. Later in the day, Banda won the open 400m in a national-best 44.58 while Jason Barton took second at 44.82 and Steve Fitch eighth at 46.49. The meet came to a close with Fitch, Amoo, Peterson and Barton combining to win the 4x400m relay in a school-record and meet-record time of 3:01.26. ASU is ranked third in the nation heading into the regional meet.
STEEPLECHASE U.
For the first time in school history, the steeplechase events at the conference meet were swept by Sun Devil runners. Amy Hastings secured the title for in the women's race at 10:21.74 while Aaron Aguayo took gold in the men's race at 8:47.69. It was the first season either redshirt freshman had competed on the track for the Sun Devils.
TRACK HISTORY 101
Several record-type performances were turned in at the Pac-10 Championships over the weekend on both the men's and women's side of competition. The men's 4x400m relay team of Steve Fitch, Seth Amoo, Domenik Peterson and Jason Barton clocked a 3:01.26 to become the first school to win the event four years in a row while also setting the Arizona State and Pac-10 meet records. Another member of the relay stable, Lewis Banda, nearly set the school mark in the open 400m dash as he won his second title in as many years with a second-best mark of 44.58.
The women also got in on the fun as Amy Hastings won the steeplechase to give the Sun Devil women the title in that race for each of the last four years. The conference has only offered the event for the women since 2001.
RELAY, RELAY GOOD OUTING
Along with the win in the 4x400m relay, the men's 4x100m relay also secured gold to open the day. By winning both relay events, Arizona State became the 15th school to sweep the men's relays at the conference meet and the 11th to do so when the relays are the 4x100m and 4x400m events (prior to 1976, the relays were 440 yard and mile relays). It also marked the first time it had been done since the 1999 season when USC swept the meet. The Sun Devils of 1982 also accomplished the feat as they won the 4x100m relay in 39.78 and the 4x400m in 3:09.87.
MEN THIRD, WOMEN FOURTH
The Arizona State men's team tallied 120 points to finish in third place at the Pac-10 Championships with the women finished fourth with 97 points. For the men, the 120 points scored were the second-most in school history following the 133 tallied by the 1981 conference champions. It also marked the fourth time in five years the men have recorded more than 100 points and placed them in the Top 5 for the sixth-year in a row. The women maintained their streak of five years in a row with a Top 5 finish while also breaking 90 points for only the fourth time in 16 times the Sun Devils have competed in the conference meet.
AND THE WINNERS ARE ...
Overall at the Pac-10 Championships, seven total conference titles were secured by Arizona State athletes at the meet held in Tucson. On the women's side, Jacquelyn Johnson won the heptathlon and high jump events while Amy Hastings took the 3,000m steeplechase. For the men, the 4x100m and 4x400m relays took gold while Lewis Banda won the 400m dash and Aaron Aguayo captured the 3,000m steeplechase.
FIRST TIME IS A CHARM
Nine student-athletes combined to win the five individual and two relay crowns in Tucson last weekend. Of the nine athletes, five are in their first years of competition. Jacqueyln Johnson (heptathlon and high jump), Domenik Peterson (both relays) and Steven Koehnemann (4x100m) are all true freshman while both steeplechase winners, Amy Hastings and Aaron Aguayo, are redshirt freshman.
ASU'S PAC-10 HIGH POINT AWARD
Each year, the track program honors its top point earners at the Pac-10 meet. This year, Seth Amoo led the men with his 19 points while Jacquelyn Johnson secured 21 points to pace the women. Amoo, the co-winner last year with Lewis Banda, earned eight points in the 200m dash, six in the 100m dash and 2.5 points each in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays. Johnson scored in the three events, taking 10 points each in the heptathlon and high jump and one point in the long jump.
Overall, Johnson's point total ranks as the fifth-best in school history while Amoo sits sixth all-time. His 20 points last year tied him for third all-time.
NATIONALLY KNOWN
In conference championship action over the past two weekends, four Sun Devils have earned marks that automatically or provisionally qualify for the 2004 USA Olympic Team Trials (July 9-18) in Sacramento, Calif. For the men, Jason Barton's 44.82 in the 400m dash is an automatic qualifier while Seth Amoo's 20.57 in the 200m is a 'B' or provisional mark.
On the women's side, Jacquelyn Johnson's 5,603 points in the heptathlon and Cassandra Reed's 51.97 in the 400m dash are both 'B' qualifiers.
HE'S FAST
Although the 44.58 Lewis Banda clocked while winning the 400m dash at the Pac-10 Championships left him .17 seconds shy of the Arizona State record of 44.41 set in 1968 by Ron Freeman II, it did put him on top of another record book. Banda also set the national record for Zimbabwe as he continues to improve in the hopes of qualifying for the Olympics this summer in Athens, Greece.
BREAKING OUT THE BROOMS
For the second time this season, the Arizona State men and women's teams swept its intrastate rivals in the annual Double Dual, this time held in Tucson. On the men's side, the Sun Devils defeated Arizona, 104-96, and Northern Arizona, 130-60. The women posted similar scores as ASU downed the Wildcats, 103-95, and the Lumberjacks, 125-60. In the previous meeting, the Sun Devils handed defeats to both UA and NAU at the indoor dual, conducted Jan. 31 in Flagstaff.
TAVLARIDES VAULTING TO NEW HEIGHTS
Heading into the start of the 2004 season, no Sun Devil woman had ever cleared 12 feet in competition with Olivia Mazzaglia's mark of 11-6 in 2000 being the record (and only mark recorded over nine feet). Enter Angela Tavlarides, who has shattered the mark four times this season and cleared 12-feet twice. On May 1, she reset the record mark at 3.80m (12-5.50) during the Double Dual.
MEN HIGH IN THE RANKINGS
In the latest Trackwire.com Top 25 rankings (May 18), the men are ranked seventh overall. In the same release, the women did not receive votes. In the power rankings, the men are ranked sixth while the women sit in seventh, both improvements from last weeks rankings and the highest the women have been all year.
MOVING ON UP
The men's 4x400m relay team was back at it again April 3 at the Texas Relays, breaking the school record in the event that was set before any of the four was born: 1977. The quartet of Steve Fitch, Domenik Peterson, Jason Barton and Lewis Banda returned to Tempe after finishing third in the event at 3:01.51. The Sun Devils broke the previous school mark of 3:01.74 that was set by Cliff McKenzie, Gerald Burl, Tony Darden and Herman Frazier, a mark that stood for 27 years. Though the old mark stood that long, the new mark was around for 43 days as the team of Fitch, Seth Amoo, Peterson and Barton broke the standard at the Pac-10 meet with a winning time of 3:01.26.
OLD RECORDS
Although the previous 4x400m relay mark was set numerous years ago, there are still four more marks on the men's lists that have been around longer. Jerry Bright holds the 200m mark at 20.29 while Ron Freeman II clocked a 44.41 in the 400m. Both marks were set in 1968. Two years later, Chuck LaBenz set the standard in the 1,500m and mile runs, both during the 1970 season.
ALL-AMERICANS
Members of the track and field program traveled to Fayetteville, Ark., for the 2004 NCAA Indoor Championships, March 14-15, and returned with stellar performances. Of the 10 athletes that competed in the national event, six returned home as All-Americans. Those Sun Devils included Lewis Banda (4x400m), Jason Barton (4x400m and 400m), Domenik Peterson (4x400m and 200m), Seth Amoo (4x400m), Amy Hastings (5,000m) and Jacquelyn Johnson (pentathlon).
As a team, the men finished tied for 12th with 17 points earned while the women took a tie for 27th with eight.
MORE FRESHMAN SUCCESS
Johnson was not the only Sun Devil freshman that had an impressive debut at the NCAA Championships. Domenik Peterson competed in three races to earn All-America honors twice while setting one school record. Individually, Peterson finished fourth in the 200m dash with an ASU record time of 20.54. He then anchored the men's 4x400m relay team to a third place finish.
LAST TIME OUT: TUCSON ELITE
Eight Sun Devils competed in the Tucson Elite Classic Saturday to close out the regular season of competition. On the women's side, Jana Pintz rounded out the women's entrants with a sixth-place finish in the javelin at 43.69m (143-04).
For the men, Joshua Kinnaman stayed busy as he entered into three events. Kinnaman was third in the 110m high hurdles (16.44), fifth in the discus (46.98m/154-02) and sixth in the shot put (12.58m/41-03.25). Travis Jones pulled double duty as he won the hammer at 58.42m (191-08) and placed fourth in the discus (53.23m/174-08). Stephen Dolk recorded no height in the pole vault.
UP NEXT
The collegiate season comes to a close June 9-12 in Austin, Texas, with the running of the 2004 NCAA Outdoor Championships. Several Sun Devils, both current and former, also will compete in the USA Olympic Team Trials, July 9-18, in Sacramento, Calif.