April 1, 2009
AUSTIN - A score of 3,933 points has Texas A&M's Trinity Otto in first place after day one of the decathlon at the 82nd Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays in Myers Stadium.
During the evening session on Wednesday, Aggie distance runners raced amid the same windy conditions that Otto had to contend with and produced some solid efforts.
Otto completed five of the 10 events with a decent day, although he was disappointed with a couple of the first day events - primarily the long jump and high jump. Otto holds a 26-point lead over Krzysztof Slupkowski of Wichita State (3907).
Four others have scores over 3,800 - Adolphus Jones of UT-Arlington (3880), Mat Clark of Northern Iowa (3860), Gray Horn of Florida (3835), and Camille Vandendriessche of Abilene Christian (3812).
"I'm real excited to be in first place, even though I didn't do as well as I expected in a couple of events," Otto noted. "Being in first place despite those couple of bad events is a confidence boost for me going into the second day."
With a top time of 10.77 to open the competition at noon, Otto led the field of 21 athletes with 912 points. Two fouls in the long jump left Otto settling for a 22-5 mark and just 774 more points.
A rebound in the shot put produced a distance of 45-11.25 for 728 points and returned Otto to first place with a composite score of 2414. Then Otto slipped back into a tie for fourth place with a 6-1.5 clearance (687 points) in the high jump.
In the 400 to close out the first day Otto posted the second fastest time with a 49.63 for 832 points. That pushed him back into the lead.
"After the shot put I thought things were turning around and I was going to have a good day," Otto said. "Then I came back for the high jump and things didn't really click. That kind of put me down again, but then the 400 was pretty solid for me."
In the first men's University final of the day Mitch Bible raced to a sixth-place finish in the 5,000 meters, clocking a time of 14:49.88. Lamar's Samuel Kosgei won the race in 14:14.74. Bible bettered his outdoor previous best of 14:54.91.
Sam Mutschler finished third in the second of two sections for the 800 meters with a time of 1:53.34. He placed behind two international runners as Aggrey Chirchir of UTEP won in 1:52.29 while Julius Mutekanga of Long Island ran 1:52.99 for second.
In the 1,500 a pair of Aggie frosh ran with Jeremy Warren placing second with a 3:58.07 behind the winning time of 3:56.29 by UTSA's Michael Cook. MacLean O'Donnell finished fourth in the race with a 4:01.51.