Meet Results
PARKLAND (Mar. 12) -- Senior Torrie Self (Kent/Kent-Meridian HS) won three individual events, and the Central Washington University track and field team opened the outdoor portion of its season with a pair of team victories at the PLU Invitational on Saturday.
Central's men cruised to a 49-point victory over second-place Pacific Lutheran, while the women edged conference rival Seattle Pacific by a 183-179 count to win their team crown.
All three of the Wildcats' outright individual event titles on the women's side belonged to Self, a reigning NCAA Division II nationals participant in outdoor track and field from a year ago. She won the women's shot put, discus, and hammer throws on Saturday in her 2011 outdoor debut, with best marks of 12.09 meters (39 feet, 8 inches) in the shot, 40.45 meters (132 feet, 8 inches) in the discus, and 49.23 meters (161 feet, 6 inches) in the hammer.
Freshman Chelsea Genther (Burlington/Burlington-Edison HS) also won individually for the CWU women, although hers was a declared three-way tie for the 100-meter dash title. Genther, along with two others, finished her heat with a hand time of 12.7 seconds.
CWU swept first-place finishes in the two women's relay events, winning the 4x100 with a time of 49.41 and the 4x400 with a hand time of 4:08.3. The Wildcats' win in the 4x100 was by nearly two full seconds over second-place Pacific Lutheran, while their 4x400 time outdistanced the second-place Lutes by nearly 14 seconds.
Self's efforts in the throwing events led a significant team effort by the Wildcats in those three events. CWU swept the top four places in the shot, had three of the top four places in the discus, and three of the top six marks in the hammer as they accumulated 71 team points combined in those three events. Senior Shaina Afoa (Anchorage, Alaska/A.J. Dimond HS) was second in the discus (36.01m/118-2) and third in the shot (11.48m/37-8), while sophomore Kaylee Baumstark (Port Angeles) added top-four finishes in each of the three throwing events.
On the men's side, Central had six outright event winners and a total of nine individual first-place finishers. Sophomore Scott Morrison (Hoquiam) won both the 200- and 400-meter dashes with hand times of 21.9 and 48.8 seconds, respectively, while Nathan Power (Burlington/Burlington-Edison HS) and Manuel Santos (Yakima/A.C. Davis HS) won titles in the 800- and 10,000-meter races, respectively. Sophomore Anthony Hogan (Federal Way/Todd Beamer HS) won the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 14.9 seconds, and Manny Melo (Battle Ground) was the Wildcats' lone outright winner in the field events, winning the long jump with a mark of 6.28 meters (20 feet, 7 1/4 inches).
Adding to those titles were a 4x400-meter relay win in a time of 3:22.9, and a three-way tie for first place in the high jump between sophomore Brandon Roddewig (Fall City/Mount Si HS), Lewis Meyers (Carson/Stevenson HS), and Brennan Boyes (Puyallup). All three of those individuals cleared 1.93 meters (6 feet, 4 inches) to claim a share of first in the event.
The high jump, long jump, and discus proved to be the most successful events on the day for Central's men. Four of the top five marks in the high jump (including the three-way tie for first) belonged to Wildcats, while CWU finished first, second, fifth, and sixth in the long jump and added four more scoring finished (third, fourth, seventh, and eighth) in the discus.
Central Washington has a pair of meets on tap for next weekend, with individuals competing in either the Dusty Lane Open in Spokane or the Oregon Preview in Eugene, Ore.
