Track & field claims six titles at MPSF Championships

February 27, 2010

The men’s sprinters collected three titles and the women added two more to lead the Arizona State University track and field team to a pair of Top 4 finishes at the 2010 Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) that concluded Saturday at Dempsey Indoor in Seattle, Wash. The Sun Devils collected six conference crowns on the second day of action came to a close, including sweeps of the 400m dash and the 4x400m relay.<separator></separator>In the team standings, the men and women both placed fourth overall scoring 75.0 and 79.0 points, respectively, while the men’s title went to UCLA (108.5) and the women’s to Oregon (133.0). Stanford (113.0) and Arizona (109) rounded out the Top 3 women’s teams in the competition while Stanford (95.5) and California (90.0) completed the men’s Top 3 standings.<separator></separator>On the track, the Sun Devil sprinters posted top times in the 400m events as <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/sanford_donald00.html">… Sanford</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/chaney_jasmine00.html">… Chaney</a> each won crowns with NCAA provisional-qualifying times of 46.19 and 53.83, respectively. Sanford’s time ranks fifth-fastest in program history while Chaney moved into sixth all-time at ASU.<separator></separator>Both sprinters came back at the end of the meet to help their respective 4x400m relays to victory with both provisionally qualifying and posting all-time ASU Top 10 times in the process. In the men’s race, Sanford joined with <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/battle_allante00.html">… Battle</a>, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/kremer_justin00.html">J… Kremer</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/phillip_joel00.html">Jo… Phillip</a> to run 3:07.38, the seventh-best time in program history, while the women saw Chaney join up with Dominique’ Maloy, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/pinnick_keia00.html">Ke… Pinnick</a> and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/sanchez_kayla00.html">K… Sanchez</a> to run 3:38.40, the ninth-best mark all-time in ASU history. Chaney also provisionally qualified in the 60m hurdles by running the fourth-best time in school history, 8.33. Phillip also added a provisional qualifier in the 400m dash as he took fourth place with a time of 47.17.<separator></separator><a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/trice_lawrence00.html">… Trice</a> won the men’s 60m dash by clocking a time of 6.68, the fourth-best in school history, while <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/milus_ryan00.html">Ryan Milus</a> ran 6.76 to record the eighth-best time in ASU history and take third in the meet. The final victory came in the 800m run as <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/mchenry_mason00.html">M… McHenry</a> provisionally qualified with a time of 1:48.89 to repeat as the champion in the event.<separator></separator>Three distance athletes added the final provisional qualifying times with two of those times ranking highly on that ASU charts. <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/bethke_brandon00.html">… Bethke</a> took third in the men’s mile run as he ran 4:02.41, the fourth-best time in ASU history, to provisionally qualify after already having automatically qualify in the 3,000m run two weeks ago. For the women, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/hardt_kari00.html">Kari Hardt</a> (9:29.31) and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/kieffer_allie00.html">A… Kieffer</a> (9:31.91) both earned qualifying times with Kieffer’s time ranking eighth all-time.<separator></separator>The men’s two-day heptathlon came to a close with <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/marcinko_jeremy00.html"… Marcinko</a> (eighth) and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/sandys_jamie00.html">Ja… Sandys</a> (ninth) both posting personal-best scores of 4,964 and 4,929, respectively. Marcinko also won the heptathlon pole vault as he cleared 5.00m (16-04.75), bettering his previous school heptathlon record of 4.90m set earlier this season. Just as Marcinko’s finish scored points for the team, so did the finishes of five others. In the field, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/carpenter_cara00.html">… Carpenter</a> cleared 3.85m (12-07.50) to tie for seventh place for the women for the lone points off the track.<separator></separator>On the track for the women, <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/allison_alyssa00.html">… Allison</a> finished seventh in the mile with a time of 4:51.35, the seventh-best all-time at ASU, while Christable Nettey took fifth in the 60m hurdles in 8.54. The men added points from Kremer, who took fifth in the 400m dash (47.70) and <a href="http://thesundevils.cstv.com/sports/c-track/mtt/barbosa_nectaly00.html"… Barbosa</a>, who took seventh place in the 800m run (1:50.59).<separator></separator>Several Sun Devils may compete in last chance meets next weekend at various locations. Those that qualify for the national meet will travel to Fayetteville, Ark., to compete in the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships on March 12-13, the final indoor competition of the season.