WSU’s Diles vaults to finals
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Tamara Diles rose above other area athletes during Thursday’s action at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Sacramento State University’s Hornet Stadium.
Diles, a junior at Washington State University, cleared 13 feet, 5 1/4 inches during the women’s pole vault preliminaries to qualify for Saturday’s finals in the event.
Diles, the school record-holder who entered with the ninth-best mark (13-7 1/4 ) among competitors, shared the top preliminary mark with 10 others. Three others cleared 13-1 1/2 to round out the finals field.
The second day of the four-day meet was otherwise a downer for area athletes.
University of Idaho junior Mary Kamau didn’t qualify for Saturday’s finals of the women’s 1,500-meter run, finishing her preliminary in 4 minutes, 22.22 seconds. The qualifying cutoff was 4:18.93.
Idaho senior Pat Ray (Mt. Spokane High) and WSU sophomore Jaycee Robertson both ran 21.28 in the men’s 200 preliminaries and failed to make the evening’s semifinals. The cutoff was 20.99.
WSU sophomore John Cassleman (Pullman High) ran 51.33 in the men’s 400 hurdles preliminaries and missed today’s semifinals by one-hundredths of a second. The top-16 cutoff was 51.32.
Sophomores Drew Ulrick (Mead High) of WSU and Russ Winger of Idaho failed to qualify for Saturday’s finals of the men’s discus. Ulrick (175-9) and Winger (175-7) needed to reach 180-0 in preliminaries to move on.
On Wednesday, Winger qualified for today’s men’s shot put finals.
Idaho senior Tassie Souhrada failed to qualify for Saturday’s finals of the women’s high jump. Souhrada cleared 5-9 3/4 in the preliminaries, 1 inch shy of the qualifying standard.
Also at the meet, Tyson Gay of Arkansas ran the fastest men’s 200 in the world this year, a 19.93 effort in the semifinals that was the third-fastest in meet history.
Gay, a senior, is not competing in the 100 at the meet because he was disqualified by a false start in the Mideast Regional.
Arkansas, two-time defending men’s team champion, has three runners in Saturday night’s 200 finals.
Australian Fabrice Lapierre of Texas A&M won the men’s long jump, going a wind-aided 26-9 on his final attempt. Oliver Koenig of Iowa State was second with a wind-legal 26-3, also on his final jump.
Trey Hardee of Texas held off Mustafa Abdur-Rahim of Dartmouth to win the decathlon. Hardee had 7,881 points to 7,739 for Abdur-Rahim.
Texas Tech ran the fastest men’s 1,600 relay in the world this year, 3:01.69 in the preliminary round, topping the 3:01.91 by the U.S. “Red” squad at the Texas Relays.