Chaney sets pace for Sun Devil track & field at ASU Invitational
The Arizona State University Invitational came to a close on Saturday night at Sun Angel Stadium in Tempe with the Sun Devils recording three victories and 11 total Top 3 finishes in their second home and outdoor meet of the season. Leading the way was All-American Jasmine Chaney, who recorded life-time bests in a pair of hurdle events while winning one of those two races.
Chaney opened the day by running 13.18 in the 100m hurdles, lowering her personal best from 13.23, to finish second in the race and post the fourth-best time in school history. Later in the day, she ran the 400m hurdles and won in a time of 57.40, just under her previous best set last year while earning All-America honors.
In the field, Anna Jelmini led the way as she competed in her first discus event for the Sun Devils, hitting a huge toss of 60.49m (198-5) to easily win the event and move herself into third on the school’s all-time Top 10 list. The only two women ahead of her were the gold and silver medalists at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics: Leslie Deniz and Ria Stahlman.
Back on the track, the men turned in several strong performances with Nick Happe taking the spotlight in the men’s 5,000m run. On a cool night, Happe hung with former Sun Devil national champion Kyle Alcorn before kicking with the final 300m remaining to overtake Alcorn and cross the finish line first in 14:10.56. That time put Happe in the record books as he broke the meet record, previously held by Khalid Khannouchi (Morocco), who ran 14:16.95 in 1996.
Five Sun Devils will travel south next week as they will compete in the Jim Click Multis hosted by Arizona in Tucson. Three men will compete in the decathlon and two women in the heptathlon over the course of two days.