WSU’s Powell, Pickler win combined events titles

Washington State University’s Darion Powell won the decathlon and teammate Julie Pickler took top honors in the heptathlon at the Pacific-10 Conference Combined Events Championships at Drake Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday.

It was the second time in Pac-10 history that both events were won by athletes from the same school. California’s Bevan Hall and Missy Vanek both won titles in 2000. WSU has won four of the past five heptathlon titles, with Ellannee Richardson winning in 2001-2003. It was the Cougars first decathlon title since Leo Slack accomplished the feat in 1996.

Powell, a junior, scored a career-best 7,531 and beat runner-up Andy Young of Oregon by 366 points. Powell’s total automatically qualified him for the NCAA championships. He opened the second day of competition by winning the 110-meter hurdles in 14.90 seconds and finishing first in the discus with a toss of 153 feet, 8 inches.

Julie Pickler, a sophomore, overtook her twin sister Diana, who led after the first day’s events to win by six points with a career best 5,569 points. Julie and Diana both automatically qualified for the NCAA championships.

Julie Pickler, in third place after the first day, took the lead from Diana when she won the long jump with a leap of 19-3 1/4 . Julie also had a personal-best throw in the javelin at 129-0.

Washington Huskies senior Grace Vela finished sixth with 5,092 points, while Cougars senior Katie Miller was seventh with 5,000. Both Vela and Miller had NCAA provisional qualifying totals.

Baseball

Brady Everett hit a pair of two-run home runs to power the Washington State Cougars (20-27) to an 11-4 victory over the Sacramento State Hornets (18-30) at Bailey-Brayton Field in Pullman.

Wayne Daman Jr. (6-4) went 6 2/3 and allowed three earned runs on nine hits to pick up the victory.

Kaeo Rubin had four hits, while Everett and Jeff Miller notched three each for WSU.

Softball

Courtney Fossatti’s high chopper over third base scored pinch-runner Allison Von Liechtenstein from third base in the bottom of the seventh inning to lift the third-ranked Arizona Wildcats (37-9, 10-7) to a 4-3 victory over the 20th-ranked Washington Huskies (29-19, 8-10) in Pac-10 play in Tucson, Ariz.

Kathy Fiske and Kristen Rivera homered for Washington.