May 14, 2005
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - The 2005 Pac-10 Track & Field Championships opened Saturday with the Arizona State University track and field team posting stellar marks and capturing three individual crowns at the event being at Drake Stadium on the campus of UCLA. The men, on the strength of a pair of champions, currently stand second in the team race with 49 points while the women are fourth with 43 points. Oregon leads the men's race with 63.5 points while Stanford is ahead in the women's race.
The distance runners set the tone for the Sun Devils as Anna Masinelli and Aaron Aguayo captured their respective 3,000m steeplechase events before long jump specialist Trevell Quinley won his first crown in the event on his final jump of the competition.
In the steeplechase, Masinelli led for a majority of the race and crossed the finish line first with the fourth-fastest time in school history at 10:23.27. Her win marked the fifth year in a row a Sun Devil has captured the event. In the same race, Liz Lindgren finished eighth and Corey Randall placed 10th. On the men's side of the race, Aguayo went wire-to-wire as the leader to successfully defend the title he won a year ago while also recording the second-fastest time in school history at 8:41.61. Right behind him was Ryan Warrenburg at 8:43.66, the fourth-place finisher and holder of the third-fastest time in school history.
Quinley, the 2005 NCAA Indoor Championships runner-up, sat in second place for most of the competition before recording a leap of 7.77m (25-06.00) to take the lead with the former leader, Allen Simms of USC, set to take his final jump. In the end, Simms did not produce a further mark which allowed Quinley to win the event. Also in the long jump and competing in the event for just the second time this season, Rudy Burgess, a standout on the Sun Devil football team, placed eighth with a jump of 7.12m (23-04.50) and earned one point for the team.
Staying in the field, a pair of Sun Devils recorded runner-up finishes as Jessica Pressley, in her first conference meet, was second in the shot put with a heave of 16.61m (54-06.00) while pole vaulter Brandon Glenn placed second with a clearance of 5.30m (17-04.50), the second-best mark in school history. Although Glenn was the lone Sun Devil in the event, Pressley was not alone as teammates Julia Pedersen and Jennifer Kowacz placed third and eighth, respectively, to earn team points for ASU. A final runner-up on the day came in the women's 10,000m run where Victoria Jackson clocked a 35:24.43 to take second in her first conference meet.
In other finals contested on the day, Nadia Matthews finished 16th in the same event at 5.46m (17-11.00). Travis Jones and Tomas Navarro scored points for the Sun Devils as they placed fifth (56.45m/185-02) and eighth (54.70m/179-05), respectively. In the men's javelin, Andrew Smith recorded a fourth-place finish with the sixth-longest throw in school history at 65.30m (214-03) while rookie Brad Roth finished just out of the scoring by placing ninth.
On the track, numerous stellar performances were recorded, especially by the sprinters. On the men's side, Seth Amoo is the leader in the 200m dash and sits fifth in the 100m dash while Domenik Peterson is second in the 400m dash and third in the 200m. On the women's side, Carroll stands second in the 200m dash and third in 100m dash while Cassandra Reed holds the second-fastest mark in the 400m event and is eighth in the 200m. Overall, 13 athletes advanced to the finals in their respective events with the men qualifying all four of their entrants in the 200m event while the women have three of four moving on.
The 2005 Pac-10 Track and Field Championships conclude Sunday.