In a duel between Pac-12 Conference schools UCLA, ASU and Arizona, and Big 10 schools Michigan, Nebraska and Indiana, the Big 10 men won by a narrow margin of 363.5 to 356.7, and the Pac-12 women defeated the Big 10 women by a score of 372 to 353 at the ASU Invitational.
With the heightened competition in comparison to more than a week ago at the Willie Williams Classic, the Wildcats still had many strong performances and first-place finishes.
Kate Penney ran a time of 4:24.58 in the 1500 meter run to place third, Morgan Struble finished just behind Michigan’s Sami Michell in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 59.72, and Bealoved Brown, Lizzie Smith, Tatum Waggoner and Nnenya Hailey teamed up in the 4×400-meter relay and finished in second place with a 3:40 time, just behind ASU’s time of 3:39.87.
In the 100-meter dash, Mohammad Alhasan clocked a 10.48 time to finish right behind UCLA’s Leon Powell. Blake Eichler, Pete Lauderdale II and Ty Brandt finished in third, fourth and fifth in the 200-meter dash, and Lauderdale finished in second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 46.63.
Lauderdale, Eichler, Bryce Houston and Miles Parish teamed up to place second in the 4×400 meter relay.
Nnenya Hailey placed first in the women’s 400-meter dash with a time of 54.30. Isaac Hing, Eichler, Alhasan and Brandt teamed up to win the 4×100 meter relay with a 40.26 time.
Gerhard de Beer placed first in the men’s discus throw competition with a mark of 56.55 meters, which was also a personal-best record, and Collin Kibet placed first in the men’s 800-meter race.
Kibet’s performance was one for the records. In the 800-meter race, Kibet set a personal-best of 1:46.87. His previous personal-best was 1:49.19, a time he achieved at the 2014 NCAA West Preliminaries.
Kibet’s performance was not only good enough to set a personal-best record, but his time was also the second best in UA history as well as the best time in the country this year.
“We saw a good mark coming from him,” Arizona coach Fred Harvey said to Arizona Athletics. “We were thinking 1:47 high or 1:48; we didn’t see 1:46.87. He was nails out there running that race.”
The Wildcats now head to Palo Alto, Calif., where they will compete in the Stanford Invitational this coming Friday and Saturday. They will host the Jim Click Shootout Multis starting on April 9.
Harvey said he was satisfied with the way his team performed over the weekend and said he feels they are well-prepared for the upcoming meets.
“It was a really exciting meet for us,” Harvey said. “The biggest takeaway from this meet, we had people come here to [ASU], step up and compete at a high level. It shows us the level of team that we have here at Arizona. As we go forward into the Jim Click Shootout, we will continue to build on that and get better and better.”
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