Feb. 23, 2007
SEATTLE, Wash. - The Arizona State University track and field team opened competition at the 2007 MPSF Indoor Track & Field Championships with three women winning titles as the first day of the meet came to a close Friday night inside the Dempsey Indoor Facility in Seattle, Wash. The Sun Devil women scored 53 points and holds the overall team lead with Stanford just behind with 48 points. The ASU men scored 23 points to stand in a three-way tie for third place with Stanford and Long Beach State while host Washington leads the men's team race with 42 points.
Individually, Sarah Stevens won the women's weight throw, Jacquelyn Johnson took the heptathlon title for the second year in a row and April Kubishta captured the pole vault crown with all three also posting NCAA automatic qualifying marks. Stevens recorded the second-best throw in school history and third-best in the nation this season at 21.16m (69-05.25) while also setting the meet record in the event. Kubishta once again cleared 14 feet, climbing over 4.27m (14-00.00) to win the pole vault while Johnson scored 4,159 points in the pentathlon for the victory. Johnson also won the 60m hurdles (8.56) and the 800m run (2:17.74) in the pentathlon competition to secure the win.
On the men's side, Matt Turner recorded an NCAA provisional mark of 7.59m (24-11.00) to take runner-up honors in the long jump while Kelvin Love Jr. ran 21.29 in the 200m dash to place third overall. Jason Lewis also finished third in his event, taking the bronze in the weight throw with a mark of 18.73m (61-05.50). Domenik Peterson rounded out the scoring place-winners for the men by finishing sixth in the 200m dash in 21.54.
A pair of men competed on the day and will continue Saturday in Joshua Kinnaman in the heptathlon and Marquis Profit in the 60m hurdles. Kinnaman accumulated 3,170 points to stand second overall, trailing Long Beach State's Chris Richardson by just 31 points. Profit, running the hurdle event, clocked the second-fastest time in school history of 8.07 to finish fifth overall in the preliminaries and earned a berth into the finals.
The women scored 23 points in the weight throw as Stevens (10 points) was followed by Jessica Pressley (eight points) and Tai Battle (five points) in the standings as the duo finished second and fourth, respectively. Pressley provisionally qualified with a toss of 20.30m (66-07.25) while Battle's mark was 18.39m (60-04.00). Stephanie Garnett and Cassie Rios also scored on the day with Garnett's NCAA provisional leap of 6.17m (20-03.00) in the long jump garnered six points for her third-place finish while Rios earned four points by placing fifth in the 5,000m run in 16:56.90.
The Sun Devils will conclude competition in the MPSF meet Saturday.