Records Fall at Pacific Northwest Relays

April 10, 2009

OREGON CITY, Ore. - Ryan Lara cleared the bar on his first attempt at 5'5" to be the first ever Geoduck to hold a record in the high jump. Lara did this between his excellent 200 meter and 800 meter legs on the sprint and distance medley relays respectively.

He did not make the attempt at 5'7".

Lara, Alex Combs-Bachmann, Jason Shoemaker and Liam Rockwell established a new school record in the for-mentioned sprint medley with a clocking of 1:42.70.

Lindsey Farah and Evelyn Coleman also gave the HJ a try for the first time and enjoyed the experience despite not making the opening height.

The women's Distance Medley team smashed the old school record by over a minute and won the event easily over the other 3 teams entered. Britta Peterson opened up a large lead on the opening leg of 1200 meters (3 laps) in 4:14.17, leaving the Geoducks a comfortable lead by the first handoff. Karissa Carlson sprinted a 1:05.39 400 split, Farah coasted a 2:32.4 800 meter leg and Ana Casillas anchored with a 5:34.27 1600 meters as the team went on to break the old record of 14:31 with a time of 13:26.61.

In the same event, the men's team placed 4th of 10 teams entered. Rockwell ran the 3 lapper in 3:24.6 and handed off to Combs-Bachmann who ran his first 400 meter race in an impressive 55.8 seconds. Lara blazed down the homestretch of the 800 meter leg in 2:02.90 to handoff to Eric Jones. Jones hit a 4:40.24 1600 split and moved up a place in the last lap as the clocked stopped at 11:05.38 for the team. The team was just 4 seconds off the school record that was set at Dempsey Indoor Arena in 2008.

Shoemaker and Coleman ran the only open sprint event, the 200 meters. They placed 15th and 18th respectively.

The final event of the day was an unscored 3000 meter event for men and women. ESC had 4 women and 2 men entered. Casillas, Carlson and Peterson hit marks that made the Top 5 All-Time list for Evergreen in the event with times of 11:00, 11:07 and 11:16 respectively. Casillas placed 4th overall. Emily Baker ran a personal best of 12:25.

Eric Jones, just 30 minutes post-1600 meter leg of the DMR, ran a solid 9:34 3k. Tyler Luce hit a personal best of 9:59 in the event.

The team will compete in the Pacific Lutheran University Invitational next Saturday in Tacoma.

Pacific Northwest Relays

Team Scores

Women:

Mt Hood Community College 77.5
Clackamas Community College 77
Western Oregon University 57
Willamette University 52
Southwestern Oregon University 50.5
Warner Pacific 47
Clark College 21
Corban College 17
Evergreen College 10
Central Oregon Community College 4
Cascade College 1

Men:

Warner Pacific 81.5
Mt Hood Community College 76
Willamette University 65
Clackamas Community College 62
Western Oregon University 34
Southwestern Oregon 33
Corban College 29
Bowerman Athletic Club 15
Cascade College 13
Evergreen College 9.5
Clark College 8
NW Christian College 4
Willamette Striders Track Club 4
Central Oregon Community College 2