June 9, 2005
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Trevell Quinley placed fourth in the long jump and three other Sun Devil entries advanced to the finals of their respective events as the second day of competition at the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships concluded Thursday night under the lights of the Alex G. Spanos Sports Complex in Sacramento, Calif. Quinley earned five team points for the men to place them 10th overall while the women have yet to put a point on the board in the meet.
Quinley, the leader following Wednesday's qualification round, needed an improved mark in his third jump of the preliminaries Thursday or face elimination. He responded with the fourth-best mark of the day to move to the finals where he was unable to improve his placement. His mark of 7.69m (25-2.75) not only placed him among the Top 8, it also earned him All-America honors for the fourth time in his career and the second time this season after he finished second at the indoor national meet in March.
A trio of distance runners competed the 10,000m run finals to wrap up action late Thursday night. In the men's race, Casey Burchill clocked a 29:34.44 to finish 15th overall in his first national appearance on the track for the Sun Devils. In the women's race, Victoria Jackson had a strong showing as she broke the tape at 34:23.86 to place 17th in the event while teammate Amy Hastings, vying for her third All-America honors this academic year (cross country and the indoor 3,000m run), did not finish the race.
Staying on the track, senior Seth Amoo turned in several stellar performances to advance in two events Thursday. First up, Amoo won his heat and was fourth overall in the preliminaries of the 200m dash at 20.62 before clocking a 20.36 in the semifinals to finish third in his heat and sixth overall. His semifinal time not only advanced him the Saturday final, it also tied him for the fourth-fastest 200m dash in school history as LaMonte King clocked the same mark in 1981. After a short rest, Amoo blistered a sub-44 second split as the second leg of the 4x400m relay to help ASU place second in its heat and fifth overall to advance to the finals Saturday night. He was joined on the relay by leadoff Rich Allen, Domenik Peterson and anchor Lewis Banda to clock a 3:03.28, the ninth-fastest time in school history.
The Sun Devils' final qualifier of the day came in the first event of the day as Sacramento-product and redshirt freshman Jessica Pressley continued her stellar season as she placed second in her flight and sixth overall to move into the finals of the hammer on Saturday. Pressley punched her ticket to the finals with a toss of 60.89m (199-09). Pressley and teammate Julia Pedersen did not fare as well in the shot put qualification round as Pressley placed 13th overall with a toss of 15.55m (51-0.25) and Pedersen took 18th at 15.18m (49-9.75). The final field event of the day saw senior Angela Tavlarides place 20th overall and 12th in her flight of the pole vault as she cleared 3.90m (12-9.50) and did not advance to the finals.
Back on the track, Rachel Ellison finished eighth in her heat and 15th overall in the semifinals of the 1,500m run with a time of 4:19.62. Her mark moved her to third on the ASU lists and made her just the third Sun Devil female to record a time of 4:19 or less in the event. Sprinters Porchea Carroll and Kandace Tucker each advanced from the preliminaries to the semifinals of the 200m dash before falling to round out the ASU contingent on Day 2. Carroll finished 10th in the preliminaries (23.42) before placing 14th in the semifinals (23.68) while Tucker finished 14th (23.56) and 11th (23.38), respectively.
Day three will be a much lighter day for the Sun Devils as two field events and two track events are the lone competitions slated involving ASU student-athletes. In the field, Pedersen will compete in the finals of the women's discus while Ryan Zimmerman will take part in the qualification rounds of the men's triple jump. On the track, the men's 4x100m relay of Steven Koehnemann, Peterson, Amoo and Kelvin Love Jr., will race in the finals as will Aaron Aguayo and Ryan Warrenburg in the 3,000m steeplechase final.