Big West Conference Championships
Cal Poly Holds Top Two Spots in Decathlon After Day 1 of Championships
5/8/2015 12:00:00 AM | Track and Field
Scranton Wins Shot Put, Adair Claims First Place in Long Jump to Open Finals for Mustangs
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Two Cal Poly sophomores are atop the decathlon leaderboard following the first half of competition at the 46th annual Big West Conference Track and Field Championships.
Leading the contingent of 16 student-athletes, Ted Scranton is No. 1 with 3,546 points after the initial day, while Mustang teammate Ivy Adair is on his heels with a total of 3,538.
Long Beach State freshman Herman Day is third at 3,534. Another Cal Poly sophomore, Danny Yeager, is also in a ninth-place position, with 3,354.
Scranton established three lifetime bests to open: 11.36 seconds in the 100-meter dash; 6 feet, 2 inches in the high jump; and a runner-up 51.24 in the 400. He also posted the day's top shot put mark — 46-4 — on his third attempt.
Last year's sixth-place finisher, Scranton (pictured second from the left) is looking to build upon his 6,555 (already No. 7 in school history on the post-1985 table) from the Sam Adams Invitational in Montecito on April 3-4.
Adair also put forth a career-best performance Friday, shot-putting to 38 feet, 11.75 inches, and won the long jump by bounding to 22-3 on his final try. He also has another of his premier events, the javelin throw (wherein his regular-season mark of 189-11 ranked seventh conference-wide), waiting in Round 2.
Yeager matched his personal record in the shot (34-6.25) while surpassing it in the high jump (6-5.5, tying UC Santa Barbara's Ike Okpara, who needed two fewer attempts). Yeager came in owning the Big West's ninth-highest clearance this spring.
Meanwhile in the heptathlon, Cal Poly sophomore Jessica Davis will enter Day 2 in eighth place, compiling 2,793 points Friday. She had a PR in the shot put, at a fourth-place 33-9.25, on her third heave.
Two spots back overall, fellow sophomore Jessica Rasmussen is 10th with a score of 2,574 after clocking a career-best 100-meter hurdles time of 14.94 seconds and equaling her season-fastest 200, 25.46 (taking fourth). One of Rasmussen's strongest points, the long jump (in which she has gotten to 18-1.5 this year), still remains.
Mustang freshman Kirby Ruback scored 2,360, good for 14th. Ruback and Davis tied for fifth among the 18 competitors in the high jump, getting over the bar at 4-11.75.
CSUN senior Olympia Jewett possesses the lead, having tabulated a 3,049.
Saturday's decathlon will resume at 11 a.m., followed by the heptathlon restart at 1 p.m.
After these multi-event days, the finals will return to UC Riverside a week later (May 15-16, with the latter day televised by Fox Sports Prime Ticket).
Cal Poly's decathletes and heptathletes are seeking to add to the program's four combined-event crowns won since 2003.
