Results
COMMERCE – Parker Petty and Cassie Brooks of Abilene Christian University finished the record-setting first day of the Lone Star Conference multi-event championships here Thursday in third place at the league's annual track and field competition.
Petty and Brooks are reigning champions, but they face challenges in their bid to repeat their titles here in Memorial Stadium.
Petty, junior from White Deer, is third in the decathlon with 3,463 points – well over the 3,275 he scored on the first day last year – but he trails Angelo State's Seth Pearson by 313 points. Pearson leads with 3,776 – an LSC first-day points record – after winning the 100, long jump and 400.
He won last year with 6,236 points.
Brooks, junior from Mesquite Horn, is third in the more closely contested heptathlon with 3,020 points, only 30 behind the leader, Angelo State's Cathryn Rittenberry (3,050). The heptathlon had a different leader after each of Thursday's four events.
She won last year with 4,696 points.
The multi-events resume here Friday (10:30 a.m. for decathlon, 11 a.m. for heptathlon). Also, field event finals will begin at 2 p.m., and running event preliminaries (and finals in the steeplechase and 10,000 for men and women) will follow at 6 p.m. in the 78th running of LSC track and field.
It's the 16th appearance of LSC track and field here – more than any other city.
The Abilene Christian men's team is seeking to extend its streak of team championships to 19 years, while the women are looking for their first title since 2008 after finishing runner-up to Angelo State the last three years.
Pearson erased meet records in the first two decathlon events with 10.94 (3.6) in the 100 and 23-0 (3.7) in the long jump – the first LSC decathlon 100 ever under 11 seconds and the first LSC decathlon long jump ever at least 23 feet. That gave him 1,690 points and a 213-point lead over Petty, who was fourth at 1,477 after 11.34 in the 100 and 21-2.75 in the long jump.
Petty won the shot put (38-6.75), and William Welch of Eastern New Mexico won the high jump (6-5.5 with Petty at 5-11.5), but Pearson finished Thursday's decathlon competition with 50.93 to win the 400 with Petty at 51.41.
In the heptathlon, Rittenberry opened with a meet record 13.98 in the 100 hurdles – the first LSC heptathlon hurdles ever under 14 seconds – to score 981 points for the early lead. But Shelby Terry of Tarleton State lead after the high jump with 1,681 points, Brooks led after the shot put with 2,241 points, and Rittenberry returned to the lead after the 200.
Three heptathletes tied in the high jump at 5-5.75 (Brooks jumped 5-3.25), Brooks won the shot put (37-11.25) and Commerce's Aysha Moultrie won the 200 (meet record 24.77) to move up to second behind Rittenberry. Brooks' other marks were 14.85 in the hurdles and 26.21 in the 200.
The LSC is contesting the multi-events for the ninth year.
