SEATTLE -- The Washington State women's track and field team reached its highest finish since 2004 with fourth place at the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championships Saturday at the Dempsey Indoor Facility in Seattle.
Oregon, ranked number one nationally, won the women's team title with 108 points, followed by Stanford with 73.75, No. 10 USC with 59, and WSU with 54.5. USC won the men's team title with 90.5 points followed by BYU with 82, UCLA with 73, and No. 2 Oregon with 72. The WSU men finished in 12th place with 19 points.
“This was a great meet on the women's side, to finish fourth among some of the very best teams in the nation!” WSU Director of Cross Country/Track & Field Wayne Phipps said. “Kiana Davis and Liz Harper were absolute superstars for us this weekend. Dom Keel was also amazing, running great in the 200m and 400m and then leading our 4x4 relay. Dino Dodig battled illness in route to a school record in the heptathlon as well as a possible NCAA berth. Reid Muller also has a great weekend breaking two freshman records (DMR and 800). We will have rest up, recover and then wait to see how many we get to the NCAA meet.
The Cougar women tallied 16.5 points in the women's high jump with Kiana Davis, a junior from Longview, Wash., winning with a personal-best height of 5-feet 10 1/2 inches (1.79m). Liz Harper (junior, Missoula, Mont.), the runner-up in the pentathlon Friday night and had soared to a PR high jump of 5-11 1/4 (1.81m), finished third Saturday with a leap of 5-10 1/2 (1.79m), behind Davis based on missed attempts. WSU seniors Audrey Ketcham (Wenatchee, Wash.) and Lateah Holmes (Fife, Wash.) finished in a four-way tie at eighth after clearing 5-4 1/2 (1.64m). Alissa Brooks-Johnson, third place in the pentathlon, finished 15th after also clearing 5-4 1/2 (1.64m).
Moving over to the triple jump, Davis captured third-place with a PR leap of 41-2 1/4 (12.55m) which is 10th-best in WSU all-time records. Greer Alsop (redshirt sophomore, Invercargill, New Zealand) captured fifth place with her leap of 40-11 1/2 (12.48m) and Kayla Warren finished 11th with her mark of 38-11 3/4 (11.88m).
The Cougar women's 4x400m relay team of Dominique Keel, Brooks-Johnson, Christiana Ekelem and Harper took third place with a season-best time of 3 minutes, 41.05 seconds.
Earlier in the day, Keel (senior, Beaverton, Ore.) took seventh place in the women's 400m dash with a PR time of 54.69 seconds while Ekelem finished 13th in a PR time of 55.89 and Regyn Gaffney was 28th with her PR time of 57.25.
Dino Dodig (junior, Novi Sad, Serbia) reached a PR total and school record of 5,635 points for fourth place in the men's heptathlon. Saturday morning he opened with a 60m hurdles time of 8.25 to move from fifth into fourth place, and then pole vaulted 15-5 (4.70m), and ran the 1000m in a PR time of 2:40.36. UCLA's Steele Wasik won the event with 5,783 points.
Thane Pierson (senior, Naches, Wash.) tied with two others for fifth place in the men's high jump with his top bar of 6-10 3/4 (2.10m). Cole Smith took 12th after clearing a PR height of 6-8 3/4 (2.05m) and Peyton Fredrickson was 13th after clearing 6-6 3/4 (2.00m).
Ja'Maun Charles (freshman, Pleasanton, Calif.) took sixth in the men's 60m dash final in a time of 6.81, just off his with his prelim and PR time of 6.80.
Reid Muller, from Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, Canada, just missed scoring in the men's 800m but his PR time of 1:51.64 for ninth place was a WSU freshman school record, erasing Bob Hewitt-Gaffney's 2007 time of 1:51.79.
Cougar men competing but not scoring included CJ Allen, 400m dash (48.30 - 13th), Paul Ryan, mile (4:09.88 - 17th) and 800m (1:54.16 - 23rd), Chandler Teigen, mile (PR 4:09.93 - 18th), John Whelan, 3000m (PR 8:01.32 - 10th), Michael Williams, 3000m (PR 8:13.51 - 20th), Forrest Shaffer, 3000m (8:15.91 - 23rd), Nathan Wadhwani, 3000m (PR 8:27.64 - 33rd), Nathan Tadesse, 3000m (8:35.78 - 34th), Matt Wardell, shot put (55-0 3/4 / 16.78m - 22nd), Jake Callaghan, shot put (51-5 3/4 / 15.69m - 24th), and Adam Mahama, shot put (49-11 1/4 / 15.22m - 26th).
WSU women competing but not scoring Saturday included Grace Victor, 800m (2:13.97 - 23rd), Jenaya Pynn, 800m (2:16.84 - 31st), CharLee Linton, 3000m (9:37.56 - 18th), Morgan Willson, 3000m (9:56.52 - 33rd), Katherine Dittmann, 3000m (PR 9:58.57 - 35th), Emily Dwyer, 3000m (10:13.21 - 35th), Josie Brown, 3000m (10:18.57 - 47th), and Steffie Pavey, 3000m (10:20.83 - 49th).
The final competition for the indoor season is the NCAA DI Indoor Championships, March 11-12, in Birmingham, Ala.