May 17, 2003
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The Arizona State track and field team completed the first day of competition at the 2003 Pac-10 Championships Saturday at USC's Loker Stadium with the women accumulating 46 points to sit in second place while the men totaled 20 points for sixth place. The women are one point ahead of UCLA and trail only Stanford (65 points) in the team standings while UCLA leads the men's race with 52 points.
The women got strong showings, and team points, from the long jump, steeplechase and 10,000m events. In the field, Jessica Scalzo taking sixth (three points) and Alvina Begay seventh (two points) to put ASU in the Top 3.
The women got onto the scoreboard after the first event of the day as Sandra Orsund captured eighth place in the hammer event with a throw of 53.58m and earning the Sun Devils one team point. Sitting in ninth heading into the women's long jump, ASU moved into second with 21 points as the long jumpers concluded their work in the sand. Greer won her second long jump title in row and her third overall to become the only female in Pac-10 history to win the long jump three times. She also did all of this in the preliminaries with a mark of 6.36m and not jumping in the finals.
Aguilera repeated as the Pac-10 champion in the women's 3,000m steeplechase after completing the circuit in 10:22.94 to continue the dominance ASU has enjoyed in the event. In the three years the steeple event has been contested, Aguilera has won twice with former teammate Kelly MacDonald winning the inaugural event in 2001. Sohn took fourth place at 10:41.48 and Fitz-Gustafson finishing eighth at 10:59.60 to score for the team. In the men's race, Kris Alexander and Ryan Warrenburg placed fifth and sixth, respectively, with Jeremy Rasmussen finishing 11th. The finish marked the lowest for Rasmussen in his career as he won the event in 2000 and took second the last two years.
In the final scored event of the day, the men's 10,000m run, Fasil Bizuneh and J.J. Duke finished fourth and ninth, respectively. Bizuneh's finish gave the Sun Devil men five points to push them to sixth place as a team.
On a trial basis, several Sun Devils fared well with the men's 4x100m relay team starting things off with a second-place finish in the first heat to advance to the finals as the third seed. Also on the men's side, the following student-athletes advanced through the preliminary trials to fight for team points and a conference title Sunday (preliminaries placement): Luiz Mello in the 100m dash (sixth); Seth Amoo (third) and Lewis Banda (fifth) in the 200m dash; Amoo (first), Banda (second) and Jason Barton (third) in the 400m dash; Jeff Dodge (sixth) in the 800m run and Dan Maher (ninth) in the 1,500m run.
On the women's side of the preliminary rounds, success also was evident heading into the finals. Sun Devil representatives include Greer (fourth) and Porchea Carroll (eighth) in the 100m dash; Greer (sixth) in the 200m dash; Cassandra Reed (third) and Joni Smith (seventh) in the 400m dash; Aguilera (fifth) in the 1,500m run and Seneca Holmes (seventh) in the 100m hurdles.
Action continues Sunday with field events starting at noon and running finals beginning at 1 p.m.