The Eastern Oregon women found success in Spokane Saturday.
SPOKANE, Wash. – The Eastern Oregn University women’s and men’s track and field team each finished fifth among schools from Oregon in Saturday’s WAR III meet.
This was the third annual Washington and Oregon duel meet.This year’s field featured teams from 15 schools ranging from NCAA Div 1 schools Washington State, Idaho and Montana, to community colleges.
The one day meet features a unique scoring format that pits schools from Washington against schools from Oregon, and this year saw Idaho and Montana schools as well. Schools from each state or region score together like one team. Washington has won all three editions for both genders.
Kody Coxen captured EOU’s first mark of the day, and won the B heat of the 5,000 meter run. The freshman won in commanding style with a time of 15:25.66. Coxen won by about 11 seconds over a runner from NCAA Div 2 Central Washington.
Other quality runs for the Eastern men came from Ryan Booth and Andrew Perri stepping up from the 800 meters to the 1,500. The Mountaineer pair finished fifth and sixth overall with times just over four minutes.
Booth, Kevin Sthen, Perri and Andrew Wise ran a fine 4x400-meter relay to close the meet with an Eastern Oregon victory in the event with a strong 3:20.77 mark. Perri moved into the lead on the third leg and Wise held on for the win by a narrow margin of .11 of a second over the host school, the Community Colleges of Spokane.
Mitch Wheelhouse’s eighth place and Andy Munsey seventh place hammer throw finishes led the EOU throwers. Wheelhouse’s toss of 163 feet was just short of Munsey’s 166 feet and two inches.
For the women, Karlee Coffey hit the only NAIA qualifying mark for EOU. The La Grande native placed fourth overall in 17:47.43 to easily surpass the NAIA standard of 18:05. It was her first track 5k and her third auto mark of the year, the 10k and Marathon being her other two.
Alma Garcilazo notched a third place in the 800 meters and Talissa Baldovino finished sixth overall, but crushed the competition in the second heat. The women's 4x400-meter team ran strong to finish third. Melisa Abesa, Grace Deboodt, Baldovino and Garcilazo teamed up to run 3:59.24 and hit an NAIA Provisional mark.
In other running events Christy Roe shaved 37 seconds off her previous best in the steeplechase to run 13:30 and Monique McKenzie shaved a 1:06 off her best to qualify for conference in 13:56. Sarah Hanchett hit a conference qualifier in the 400 hurdles (68.08) in her first venture over the distance. Abesa qualified for conference in the 200 (27.09) as well.
The Mountaineers will send a limited amount of participants to the Spokane Multis on Tuesday and Wednesday, and then hosts the EOU Open on Saturday.