By Robert McKinney, Assistant Athletics Director, Communications
SPOKANE, Wash. -- Keaton Beckmann (Fr., Salem, ORSprague HS) of Willamette University placed fifth in the decathlon and teammate Brian Peck (So., Reno, NVReno HS) took seventh place, as the Northwest Conference Multi-Event Championships concluded on Tuesday, April 10 at Whitworth University. In the heptathlon, Grace Crookham-Guy (Fr., Boise, ID/Boise HS) of Willamette was 13th and Melissa Scott (So., Tustin, CA/Beckman HS) placed 14th for the Bearcats.
Beckmann registered an overall score of 5,974 points. Peck set a personal decathlon record with 5,747 points, as he earned an increase of 72 points from his score of 5,675 during this year's Willamette vs. Corban Dual on March 13-14.
Alex Canchola from George Fox won the decathlon with 6,510 points. Nicholas McGill of Whitworth took second place at 6,284, and Matt Wells from University of Puget Sound was third at 6,263. Jon Proctor of GFU was fourth at 5,977 points, and was followed closely by Beckmann. Keaton Wood of Linfield College placed sixth at 5,758 and was 11 points in front of Peck.
On Tuesday, Beckamann recorded his best time of the season in the 110-meter hurdles at 16.09 seconds. He lowered his top time from 16.43 seconds at the Chico State Invitational earlier this season. Beckhman scored 723 points in the 100 hurdles for his fourth event with 700 or more points. Later, he cleared 10' 8.75" in the pole vault for a mark just over two inches from his top height of 10' 11" in the Willamette vs. Corban Dual. On Monday, he set season bests in the shot put (36' 6.75"), high jump (5' 10") and 400-meter dash (49.94 seconds).
Peck equalled or surpassed his career-best results in six of the 10 events. On Monday, he recorded new top marks in the 100-meter dash (11.65 seconds) and the 400-meter dash (52.74 seconds), while matching his career highs in the long jump (20' 1.25") and the high jump (5' 11.25"). During Tuesday's action, Peck set a new personal record in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.25 seconds and established a new top mark of 11' 0.75" in the pole vault.
Crookham-Guy and Scott each set a personal record with their scores in the final heptathlon standings. Crookham-Guy scored 3,494 points, easily breaking her previous top heptathlon score of 2,954. Scott's score of 3,486 was just eight points behind Crookham-Guy. Scott improved by 301 points over her previous high score of 3,185.
In addition, Crookham-Guy earned her best marks of the season in the first two events of the heptathlon and performed close to her top results in four of the five final events. She registered a new top time of 18.37 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles and set a new mark of 4' 6" in the high jump. She was very close to her personal records in the shot put at 27' 3.75" (top is 27' 5"), 200-meter dash at 28.20 seconds (28.17), long jump at 14' 11.50" (15' 1.75"), and javelin throw at 69' 8" (71' 5.75").
Scott recorded personal records in the last five events. She completed Monday's competition by throwing the shot put 29' 1.25" and running the 200-meter dash in 29.61 seconds. She improved her previous top marks in those events from 25' 11.25" in the shot put and 29.94 seconds in the 200 dash. On Tuesday, she added top results in the long jump at 14' 8.50", javelin throw at 84' 9", and 800-meter run at 2:52.95.
Annie Wright of George Fox won the women's heptathlon with a Northwest Conference Championship record of 4,959 points. Isabel Clark from Whitworth placed second at 4,704, while Dakota Buhler of GFU was third at 4,487.
Final standings at the NWC Multi-Event Championships provided points in the team standings for the overall NWC Track and Field Championships. In the men's standings, George Fox has 16 points, followed by Whitworth with 8 points, Willamette and Puget Sound with 6 points each, and Linfield College with 3 points. In the women's standings, Whitworth and George Fox each picked up 19 points, while Linfield earned 1 point. The remaining track and field events will be contested on Friday, April 20 and Saturday, April 21 at Maxwell Field on the Linfield campus.