Moore’s Best Throw Good For Third

Washington State sophomore Molly Moore reached new heights in the hammer throw. This time, she didn’t even have to scale a 30-foot fence.

Moore finished third at Sunday’s Pacific-10 Conference Track and Field Championships with a personal-best throw of 163 feet, 2 inches.

One week earlier, when a competitor’s hammer became tangled atop the withered backstop at WSU’s Mooberry Track, Moore fearlessly scaled the fence and worked the implement free with a pocket knife.

This weekend, Moore’s most formidable obstacle may have been the alarm clock. Sunday’s hammer final began at 8 a.m., and athletes were required to check in 75 minutes ahead of time.

“We got up at about 6 o’clock, got on the van at 6:45 and came here,” Moore said. “But we had been doing it all week. Coach made us be at practice and ready to go by 7:30 all week, so it wasn’t actually that big of a shock.”

Moore finished behind Arizona’s Holly Montoya (171-3) and Stanford’s Maggie Isaac (163-10).

USC junior Carrie Martin, seventh at last year’s NCAA Championships, struggled to a sixth-place finish. Martin apparently has yet to recover from a terrifying accident suffered when the hammer failed to leave her grasp.

“It took her right up off the ground and she just did a bellyflop right in the middle of the concrete,” WSU coach Rick Sloan said.

Brown’s lament

A choppy baton exchange between WSU junior Tamika Brown and freshman LaTroya Mucker may have kept the Cougars from a season-best time in the 4x100 relay.

“Troya ran faster than she ever ran before in her life,” Brown marveled. “And I didn’t know what to do. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s coming in so fast, should I leave early or wait until she hits the mark anyway?’

“And I contemplated for a while, but by the time I started she was on the mark. She was so fast.”

The Cougars finished in 45.05 seconds, behind only UCLA. The Bruins ran a season-best 44.14.

“I think we still would have got second (even with a clean exchange), but by a closer margin,” freshman anchor Attrina Higgins said.

Those piercing eyes

If Sharika Higgins entered one event for each of her body piercings, the WSU freshman sprinter would be well on her way to a career as a heptathlete.

The nose, navel and tongue are each adorned with jewelry, but it was the pierced eyebrow that really raised eyebrows in the Higgins household.

Her mother, Shelladouet Higgins, was the first to notice.

“The one day I came home with my eyebrow pierced and I was walking up the stairs and she was walking by, she almost fell down the stairs,” Sharika said.

Notes

Arizona sophomore Amy Skieresz broke the 5,000-meter women’s record held by Spokane’s Annette (Hand) Peters. Skieresz finished in 15 minutes, 44.91 seconds. Hand ran a 16:03.46 for Oregon in 1988… . There were four women’s double-winners, including Skieresz, who won the 3,000 in 9:13.87… . Oregon sophomore Micah Davis, from Mead High, finished 12th in the 5,000.

, DataTimes