Washington's Rusnak breaks school record and wins Pac-12 heptathlon title...
In doing so, the native of Lynden broke her own school record and personal best of 5642 points, set last month at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California.
Additionally, the mark moves her to number 4 on the NCAA descending order list, pending the outcome of the various conference championship meets around the country.
She also joins 1992 Pac-10 heptathlon champion Sonja Forster as the only Huskies to win the conference title in this event.
"I don't know if it's really hit me yet, it's kind of just starting to think in and it's really an amazing feeling," Rusnak said. "I couldn't ask for a better support system. My family flew out and my brother surprised me, I didn't know he was coming. Obviously my coach (Toby Stevenson) is so proud of me, he's pushed me through this whole year and training for this moment and onward."
Rusnak won the long jump to extend her lead, flying 19-feet, 9-inches (6.02m) on her second attempt. Heading to the javelin, she added five feet to her career-best with a toss of 141-2 (43.03m) that was second-best overall but extended her lead over her closest competitors.
In the 800-meters, Rusnak knew she just had to keep the gap between her and second place finisher Maja Wichart-Donzo of Colorado and third place finisher Christina Chenault of UCLA from getting too big, as the competitors had faster 800-meter times. Rusnak was 10th overall in the final race, but still set a personal-best of 2:24.93, to easily secure the title.
"Really I just wanted to come in and take every event one at a time, and not worry about anything besides that event that I was in," said Rusnak, who said opening with a PR in the long jump was big. "Long jump was something that in the beginning (of the season) I was struggling with. The past few meets it started to click, and today I was able to get one pretty good jump and connect things together."
"The 800 is my weak event and I knew I had to run a really tough race. I knew the girls in second and third were really going to push me and they were awesome 800 runners. So I had to really kick and stay confident in myself and push all the way through."
Washington State senior Lindsey Schauble finished tenth with a final score of 5028 points.
Schauble had a best of 18-6.5 (5.65m) in the long jump, then threw the javelin 100-7 (30.67m), and ran 2:21.00 for the 800 meters.
Washington’s Elinor Jones-Toutant from Seattle’s Franklin HS finished 14th with a final score of 4574 points.
In her three events Sunday, the junior jumped 17-1.5 (5.22m) in the long jump, threw the javelin 108-6 (33.07m), and finished the 800 meters in 2:32.73.
The decathlon competition saw Washington’s Parker Kennedy rally to finish fourth overall with a score of 6872 points, the highest placing by a Husky since Jeremy Taiwo’s runner-up finish in 2013, while Washington State’s Ray Littles finished sixth with a personal best 6772 points.
With NCAA leader Ayden Owens of USC, and defending champion Harrison Williams of Stanford skipping the Pac-12 decathlon meet to concentrate on individual events at next weekend’s conference title meet, Oregon’s Max Vollmer took the victory with 7964 points, while Hakim McMorris of Cal was second at 7259, and Colorado’s Josh Farmer, the grandson of former Washington cross country and track coach Dixon Farmer, third at 7089 points.
Kennedy started his second day with a wind-aided personal-best in the 110m hurdles of 16.16 seconds, and then added over twenty feet to his discus PR with a toss of 115-3 (35.14m).
In the pole vault, Kennedy was second overall and set a new outdoor PR of 15-feet, 9-inches (4.80m) to add 849 big points to his total. He had another big PR in the javelin, throwing 167-5 (51.03m), a best by 14 feet. Kennedy then closed out by taking second overall in the 1,500-meter run in another PR of 4:42.32.
The Cougars’ Littles recorded two PR's in both the javelin with a mark of 142-feet 3 inches (43.37m), and in the 1500m run at 4:46.26. He completed the weekend with five total lifetime best marks, along with winning the 100m dash, and placing second overall in the 400m dash.
The points scored from the decathlon and the heptathlon rolls over onto the team totals in next weekend’s Pac-12 track and field championships, which will also be contested at Drachman Stadium, hosted by the University of Arizona.
Complete results of the Pac-12 Multi Events competition is available here.
NOTE: The sports information offices of the Pac-12 Conference, the University of Arizona, the University of Washington, and Washington State University contributed to this report.
Comments