Cougs On Fast Track In Sweep WSU Women Post First Win Over Oregon

The little things didn’t seem so trivial once the results had been tallied and the final scores were trumpeted over the loudspeaker late Saturday afternoon at Mooberry Track.

Washington State’s track and field teams had upset Oregon by the slimmest of margins. The women defeated the 25th-ranked Ducks for the first time 73-72, while the men prevailed 82-81.

WSU also swept Idaho in the annual dual meet.

In the end, it was impossible to settle on one or two performances as the ones that vaulted the Cougars to their treasured victories against the once-mighty Ducks.

“When you win by one point,” WSU coach Rick Sloan said, “you can point to a lot of things that were pretty big, can’t you?”

For pure drama, it would be difficult to surpass the efforts of hammer throwers Kristin Ogle and Molly Moore, who came up with lifetime bests to finish 1-2 in the meet’s final event.

Ogle’s 155-foot, 1-inch throw broke the school record by 5 inches and was just one of many performances that helped the Cougars women reach a milestone.

“When I was competing here, I don’t even remember it being close against the University of Oregon,” said former high jumper Lissa Olson, now a WSU assistant. “This is such a breakthrough for our women’s program to beat Oregon.”

The WSU women had been 0-20 against the Ducks, but managed to win Saturday even without injured star Francesca Green.

In addition to the heroics of Ogle and Moore, there was Rasto Kiplingat, gutting it out in the last leg of the men’s 4x400-meter relay to edge Oregon for second place.

“I could not afford to lose it,” said Kiplingat, second in the 800 after fading uncharacteristically. “I couldn’t believe they could get me like that. Never again.”

There was WSU’s frighteningly deep fleet of women’s sprinters, placing 1-2-3 in the 100 and 200 meters before winning the 4x400 relay in a school-record 44.97 seconds.

There was football player Dee Moronkola placing third in the 100 less than 4 hours after taking part in every play of the Cougars’ first spring scrimmage. In his first track meet since the 1995 California high school championships, he clocked a 10.98.

“They asked me if I wanted to run and I said cool,” offered Moronkola, who claims a 10.43 as his best 100. “I thought I was going to do pretty bad. I didn’t practice or anything. I just jumped on the track and got a uniform on.”

Idaho’s Montrell Williams, a former football star for the Vandals, ran a 10.77 to beat teammate Niels Kruller and Moronkola. Williams took the 200 in 21.52.

The Idaho men won eight events, more than either the Cougars (six) or Ducks (five), but couldn’t keep up in team scoring. WSU beat the Vandals 94-77, while Oregon prevailed 100-60.

The depth discrepancy was particularly evident in the men’s 200. Idaho finished 1-2, but the event ended up meaning far more to the Cougars.

WSU’s Colan Sewell appeared to finish second against Oregon while filling in for the ailing Guillermo Macias, but he was temporarily overlooked in the scoring.

“All of a sudden they showed that Oregon swept it 9-0,” Sloan said. “So Mark Macdonald (sprints coach) went up and had them re-look at the picture.

“And Colan was in a dead heat to a thousandth of a second for second.”

That meant Sewell and Jody Mortimore had tied, so the Cougars and Ducks would each receive two points - instead of Oregon getting all four.

“Now how close is the meet?” Sloan marveled. “One one-thousandth of a second slower and they beat us in the meet.”

Eastern Washington University’s Seville Broussard broke her school record in the 400 hurdles with an NCAA-qualifying time of 59.89 while placing second at the Seattle Pacific Invitational.

Eastern’s Pat Green won the men’s javelin at 199-9.

Also for the Eagles women, Teneka Sauls placed second in the triple jump (37-3-3/4), the third-best mark in school history; Dawn Baerlocher was fourth in the 1,500 (4:42.93), fifth-best in school history; and Amber Johnson’s 11th-place 10:22.90 in the 3,000 was No. 3 in school history.

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