Jan. 14, 2012
Complete Results
PULLMAN - Four meet records were broken and two more were tied Saturday at the 10th Annual Washington State Open Indoor track and field meet at the Indoor Facility on the Pullman campus.
A trio of Cougar men broke the mile meet record in a first through fourth sweep. Drew Jordan won the event with a lifetime-best time of 4:15.36, besting teammate Andrew Kimpel's 2010 time of 4:17.03. Andrew Gonzales' 4:16.36 and Justin Englund's 4:16.79 were also faster than the record while Jono Lafler finished fourth in a time of 4:19.51.
WSU's Stephan Scott-Ellis won the long jump with a meet record of 23-10 1/4 (7.27m), erasing the 2008 record held by Idaho's Kevin Pabst of 23-9 (7.24m).
Idaho's Jeremy Klas broke his own pole vault meet record set last winter by three inches with a leap of 17-4 1/2 (5.30m). Vandal teammate Ben Ayesu-Attah won the 400m dash with a record time of 49.75, surpassing the 2004 time of 49.88 run by Alex Moon from Eastern Washington University.
Former Whitworth University competitor Cody Stelzer won the men's high jump equaling the meet record height of 7-0 1/2 (2.15m) leaped by Thad Hathaway, a former Idaho jumper and now a WSU Athletics academic advisor, in 2003.
On the women's side, Idaho's Kelly Jacka won the women's 200m dash equaling the meet record time of 25.39, run in 2004 by WSU's Nicole Hatcher.
Chanel James led a first through fourth place finish by the WSU women in the 60m dash, running a time of 7.70 after a prelim time of 7.62 which equaled her lifetime best.
Cougars winning running events included Brett Blanshan in the men's 60m dash in a time of 6.99, Katie Fleischer in the mile in a time of 5:18.55, and Emily Farrar successfully defended her 3000m title with a time of 10:51.82.
In field events, Joe Bartlett won the men's shot put with a PR heave of 56-10 1/4 (17.33m) and Shantae Young captured the women's long jump with a leap of 17-4 3/4 (5.30m).
Former Cougar hurdles great Jeshua Anderson won the 60m hurdles in a time of 8.01
"This was a good start for the Cougars. We got our feet wet with competition this weekend," WSU Head Coach Rick Sloan said. "We saw some of the new people come in and a few of them performed well but most of them were still getting things figured out. For the women, Chanel James had a strong run and equaled her lifetime best after having a limited amount of training at the end of last semester.
"Shawn Swartz looks as good as he ever has in the high jump, not only for the start of the season but for the end of a season. Starting with a clearance at 2.10 (6-10 3/4) I'm really happy with the way he looks and the way he performed.
"As an event, the long jumpers did a great job. Stephan Scott-Ellis had good consistency and nearly reached 24-feet to start the season. Michael Bolligar made good adjustments while Sean Harris and PJ Benedictus reached lifetime-best marks for them and they are primarily triple jumpers.
"The milers did a respectable job today and Drew Jordan had a nice time for this early in the year when Coach Pete Julian is not stressing speed.
"Joe Bartlett is moving in the right direction with his PR win in the shot put today. Within the next week of two I think he will reach 58 to 59-feet or better."
A select group of Cougars will travel to Albuquerque for the University of New Mexico Cherry and Silver Invitational Meet, Jan. 20-21.
