A rainy day greeted athletes in the Pacific Northwest as Mother Nature was a factor in the first day of the 2010 NCAA Track & Field Championships. The national meet is being held at Hayward Field on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Ore.
The rainy day started with the heptathlon, an event in which two Big West athletes are participating in. UC Santa Barbara's Barbara Nwaba is in great position heading into the second day as she sits in fifth place with 3,361 points, just 258 points behind the leader Chelsea Taylor of Alabama. Cal State Northridge's Desirae Gonder is also competing in the heptathlon, sitting in 19th with 3,067 points.
The lone field event to involve conference athletes Wednesday was the high jump and it also produced an All-America for the league. After having to endure a rain delay during competition, UC Santa Barbara's Jane Doolittle claimed the national honor with a fourth place showing after clearing the bar at 1.80 meters(5-10.75). Cal Poly's Whitney Sisler also competed in the event, but was unable to clear the bar on the first attempt of 1.72 meters (5-7.75).
Moving on to the running events, the Big West athletes had a day as up and down as the weather.
Starting with the 4x100 relay, Cal State Northridge's contingent of Ben Santos, Bradley Ike, David Reid and Reindell Cole were disqualified for running out of the zone.
In one of the true hard-luck results of the day, UC Irvine's Charles Jock ran the fifth-fastest 800 (1:46.17) of the national semifinals but will not advance to the national championship round. Jock’s heat accounted for four of the eight spots in the championship race, and despite finishing with the fifth-best time in the heat, only the top two from each heat and the two next fastest times advance.
Cal State Fullerton's Ciara Short had a similar fate in the women’s 400 as she finished fourth in her heat at 53.75. Her time was just .45 off of the final qualifier for the national championship race. Long Beach State’s Kenneth Medwood also did not advance to the national championship in the 400 hurdles after his time of 51.65 put him in 17th place overall.
It wasn’t all bad on the track for Big West athletes as a trio of UCSB athletes posted excellent results. Ryan Martin advanced to the finals of the 800 by finishing second in his heat at 1:46.71, Julian deRubira finished fifth in the men’s steeplechase with a time of 8:43.62 to advance to the national final, while Danielle Domenichelli garnered All-America honors in the women’s 10K with a seventh place finish in 33:32.81.