School, Stadium Records Fall At Pacific Luau Meet
Results
FOREST GROVE – In their second home meet of the season, Pacific came home with five individual winners on a day that saw stadium records and NCAA Championships provisional qualifiers set at the Pacific Luau Meet, held at Lincoln Park Stadium.
Sam Lee (Sr., Fort Wayne, Ind.) led the Boxers with a victory and a school record in the opening event of the day, the women's 3,000-meter steeplechase. With little in the way of competition, Lee ran a time of 11:35.77, bettering her former record from the Mar. 12 Pacific Preview meet by six seconds. Kori Bellwood (Fr., Yamhill, Ore.) also captured top honors in the 400-meter hurdles, running a season best time in 1:09.55.
Nathan Gilpin (Sr., Oregon City, Ore.) led three individual event winners for the Pacific men, capturing the 400-meter hurdles in a season best of 57.55 seconds. Taylor Hickson (Fr., Red Bluff, Calif.) won the long jump with a season best mark of 20 feet, 11.75 inches and Murphy Busek (Sr., Mountain View, Hawaii) won the discus with a mark of 137 feet, 10 inches.
Michael Hunker (So., Cornelius, Ore.) captured a pair of second place finishes. He finished behind Gilpin in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 57.64 seconds and was just ahead of Gilpin in the 110-meter hurdles in 15.95 seconds.
Kelson Kawai (Fr., North Kohala, Hawaii) finished second in both the high jump and triple jump, both by judge's decisions. Kawai was runner-up in the triple jump in a season best 42 feet, 11.5 inches, but fell to Pacific Lutheran's I.V Reeves based on the length of their second best jump. Kawai then tied with George Fox's Kai Ojala with a season best height of 6 feet, 4 inches, but Ojala was given the win based on fewer misses at previous heights.
Vince Mull (So., Beaverton, Ore.) finished second in the 100 meters with a season best of 11.14 seconds. John Fredericks (Sr., Forest Grove, Ore.) was second in the pole vault with a height of 13 feet, 10.5 inches and Alex Florence (Sr., Tigard, Ore.) was second in the 200 meters with a time of 23.06 seconds. Pacific also saw its men's 1,600-meter relay fall just short of a comeback. The team of Florence, Craig Bailey (Fr., Fairfield, Calif.), Steve Stoller (Sr., Canby, Ore.) and Hunker finished second in 3:28.40 to Pacific Lutheran's 3:28.30.
The meet saw it's share of highlights across the board from all six competing teams and from a select group of unattached competitors. Sopagna Eap, a psychology faculty member in Pacific's College of Arts & Sciences, set a stadium record in the women's 5,000 meters with a time of 16:44.88. Former Pacific All-American Kelsey Owens won the 800 meters in a time of 2:17.20.
Linfield's Catherine Street just missed on an attempt to break the NCAA Division III record in the women's pole vault, missing three times at 13 feet, 8 inches. She won the event with a mark of 13 feet, 4.5, which is a new stadium record. George Fox's Jon Uldock earned a NCAA Championships provisional qualifier in the men's javelin, chucking the spear 199 feet, 11 inches.
Pacific will have one last attempt for qualifying marks for the Northwest Conference Championships next weekend. The Boxers will compete in the Rich Allen Classic in Newberg on Saturday. In addition, the Boxers will send
Aaron Koford (Fr., Wilsonville, Ore.), Kasey Fisher (So., Denair, Calif.) and Chloe Hallyburton (So., Dayton, Ore.) to the Northwest Conference Multi-Event Championships on Monday and Tuesday in Spokane.
