Big Sky track: Phillip Puccino leads Eagles men to fifth place; EWU women also fifth

A year from now, Phillip Puccino will be jumping out of airplanes. Perhaps the exhilaration will match his final track and field season at Eastern Washington, but it’s no sure bet.

“I’m exhausted, but it was a blast, I couldn’t ask for a better way to go out,” Puccino said as he walked off the podium Saturday afternoon with a third-place medal in the triple jump at the Big Sky Conference Track and Field Championships at Roos Field.

A day earlier, Puccino finished second in the high jump and fifth in the long jump. His 20 points were the most of any Eastern athlete at the four-day meet, and helped the Eagles finish fifth in the team race.

“I just want to do everything I can for the team, any way I can,” said the senior from Tacoma, who’ll be joining a bigger team after he graduates next month with a degree in criminal justice.

In July, he leaves for basic training with the U.S Army Special Forces.

Not bad for a kid who admits that he had a lot of growing up to do when he arrived in Cheney three years ago, after a season at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas.

“I just wasn’t very mature when I came here,” said Puccino, whose versatility served him well as a multievent star at Steilacoom High School and in junior college.

Three years later, he was elected captain of the jump squad at Eastern, spent his redshirt year in 2014 coaching athletes at Mt. Spokane High School and found time for an internship with the U.S. Marshals in Spokane.

At the time, according to head men’s coach Stan Kerr, many a conversation with Puccino began with the the jab, “Are you packing today, Phil?”

For sure, Puccino was packing a lot of potential, which he fully realized this week with his 20-point effort. “Everbody wants to win a title, but I gave it everything I can,” Puccino said.

Men

Overall, it was a disappointing day for the Eagles, who finished with 72 points – only seven behind third-place Montana State and 4 1/2 behind Weber State.

Freshman sprinter Jeremy VanAssche came into the meet ranked first in the 100 meters and third in the 200, but finished fourth and sixth, respectively.

“He made some freshman mistakes,” said Kerr, noting that VanAssche’s failure to lean at the finish line may have cost him third place.

VanAssche ran the 100 in 10.69 seconds – 11-hundredths behind winner Eric Adorno of Montana State.

Earlier VanAssche rallied the Eagles to fourth place in the 400-meter relay after a bad handoff on the first exchange.

The team race was decided in bizarre fashion. By everyone’s reckoning, Northern Arizona trailed Sacramento State by 4 1/2 points going into the final event, the 1,600-meter relay. The Lumberjacks won the race while the Hornets finished fourth – apparently giving NAU the title by half a point, 157 to 156 1/2.

But as the teams awaited the presentation of the team trophy, officials learned of an error in the scoring from Friday’s long jump. After the recalculations, Sac State picked up exactly half a point to share the team title.

At the end of the meet, EWU hammer thrower Jordan Arakawas was named the Most Outstanding Performer among the men.

Women

The Eagles capped a solid week with a fifth-place finish in the team race. Paula Gil-Echevarria finished third in the 1,500, freshman Tierra White was fourth in the high jump, Kelsey Forcier was third in the discus.

The Eagle women saved the best for last, and so did senior Morena Manucci.

With her family in town from her native Italy, Manucci capped her Roos Field career with an emphatic win in the triple jump. Her first jump of the afternoon was a school-record 41 feet, 1 3/4 inches, and stood up easily throughout the day; runner-up Ta’Mara Richey of Portland State was 17 inches behind.

“That first jump took all the pressure off,” Manucci said.

Eastern Washington finished with 80 points, well behind the 97 points of fourth-place Northern Arizona, but well ahead North Dakota’s sixth-place total of 52.

Sac State edged Montana State for first place in the team race, 146.4-142.2. PSU finished third with 102.

• Junior Katelyn Peterson highlighted Idaho’s final day by winning the high jump, becoming the Vandals first women’s outdoor Big Sky Champion since 1995.

Peterson cleared the final height of 5-08 on her first go and the remaining field was unable to match.

The Fairfield, Idaho native won last year’s outdoor and indoor Western Athletic Conference titles.