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April 20, 2008 Complete Results IUP Multi Results Story by Mirza Zukic Indiana Gazette Sports Writer A handful of IUP athletes took advantage of a summer-like day and treated their new coach to some fine performances in his first home meet. Troy Litten reached the automatic qualifying mark for nationals in the pole vault, Sean Strauman missed his school record in the 800 meters by .59 seconds and Chris Gardner set a personal best in the long jump three times to lead the Crimson Hawks to a strong showing at the 35th annual IUP Open at Miller Stadium. Team standings were not kept. "I thought our team stepped up," coach Ralph White said. "It was their first home meet of the year and they really took advantage of the nice weather and competed. They competed very well and that's what you always look for in athletes. "You throw away the stopwatch or the tape or the bar and you see how much effort they put into it. Our kids gave a heck of an effort. Consequently, we had some super performances across the board." Litten cleared 16 feet, 5 ¾ inches on his second attempt and took first place while earning an automatic invitation to nationals in May. He then tried to clear 16-8 ½ twice to tie the school record. After the second failed attempt, Litten acknowledged he was too tired to reach the height and didn't attempt his third and final try. After all, his day hadn't been over yet even though he competed in 11 events over two days up to that point. He still had one to go. Litten competed in the decathalon, a 10-event competition of endurance and strength, along with his specialty, the pole vault. He also ran the first leg of the 400-meter relay. "What I really like about Troy is he has a lot of heart," White said. "He's a competitor. As I said before, if we have one event left and we have to have a point, Troy is probably the one guy I want on the team." The decathalon was the only part of the IUP Open that was run Friday. The athletes competed in nine of the 10 events and finished the meet Saturday by throwing the javelin after all the track events were final. Despite the fact White calls him "the best athlete on the team," Litten admitted he was tired as the day wound down. "This is my 11th or 12th event," Litten said before the pole vault finals. "I'm getting a little sore but not as bad as I thought I might in the first (decathalon) of the year." Strauman's time of 1:50.22 in the 800-meter run was impressive namely because he had no competition to push him. Instead, the senior pushed himself and ran consistently, running his first 400 in 54 seconds and the second in 56 seconds. "It would have been nice to have someone push him a little more," White said. "But he took it out on his own. Pretty solid effort." "I felt great," Strauman said. "Coming off a kind of disappointing indoor (season), I've just been trying to practice really hard and it's been coming together the last three weeks. I had three great weeks of practice under my belt and I'm back. I feel good." Strauman missed the indoor nationals in March with an injury. Gardner entered the day with a personal record of 23-3½ in the long jump. The senior beat that mark in all three of his jumps in the finals. He set a personal best of 23-8¼ on his last jump and took second place. "I could tell as we go through the season and as the weather gets better and we practice more, I see myself progressing every meet," Gardner said. "As far as my performance today, it was a good performance. ... It wasn't that bad but I felt like I could have done better. I felt like I ran out of gas a little bit because of the heat." Gardner also won the 100-meter dash in 11.26 seconds and anchored the 400-meter relay team. The second-place finish in the 400 relay with a time of 43.09 was a slight surprise because sprints are IUP's biggest weakness, according to White. "It's the first time this year we put it together," White said. "I thought we did an excellent job and we're going to run faster in two weeks." Matt Gaudet won the men's 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:50.0. Abbey Doran had a solid day in the women's meet. She claimed third place in the 400-meter run in 1:02.42 and ran the first leg of the 1,600-meter relay. The relay team finished third but improved its best time by 13 seconds. "I am (satisfied) because there was a really strong headwind coming down the last straightaway, which makes it hard to finish," Doran said. "But it felt good. Probably my best race of the season. Every time I run, I try to improve and drop time. If I can keep doing that, I can help the 4x400 drop some more time." Other IUP place-winners in women's meet included Stacie Stockard's second-place finish in the 3,000 steeplechase in 11:48.10 and Lauren Bauer's fourth-place finish in the 800 with a time of 2:25.31. Nafee Harris, a member of the IUP team who is not eligible this season, competed in the long jump as an unattached athlete and turned in a jump of 25-8 in his first outing of the year. That performance earned Harris an Olympic B standard and qualified him to compete in the Olympic Trials in early June in Eugene, Oregon. |
