May 15, 2009
Results |Â
Photo Gallery 
LUBBOCK - An eighth-place finish for Deidre Tarver in the hammer throw earned the first point of the Texas A&M women's title defense on the first day of the Big 12 Championships hosted by Texas Tech.
The Aggies contested three finals on the first day of the conference meet while a pair of athletes completed the first day of the decathlon and heptathlon.
Prelims in track events take place on Saturday starting at 6 p.m. Finals in field events, beginning at 1 p.m., will be contested in the women's discus and long jump as well as the men's high jump, discus, pole vault and long jump.
Tarver, competing in the first final of the conference meet, established her best mark of the day in the first round. A toss of 168-9 (51.45) in the hammer placed eighth. Kansas State and Missouri each claimed 10 points in the event while Nebraska earned seven and Oklahoma had six.
Christina Munoz, who contested her first 10,000 earlier this month, raced to a time of 36:58.63 for sixth place and three more team points. Joining Munoz in the race was Emilie Fischer, who placed 16th with a 40:05.64 clocking.
Iowa State scored 23 points in the race, led by defending champion Lisa Koll winning time of 36:29.47. The Cyclones hold the day one team lead followed by Kansas State and Nebraska with 11 points each. Texas A&M is currently eighth with four points.
The men's 10,000 featured a pair of Aggies with Andrew Montes and James Hodges running the final event of the night. Hodges placed 14th with a time of 32:47.97 while Montes finished 17th in 33:14.19.
Oklahoma State secured 19 points in the 10k race led by the winning effort of Ryan Vail's 30:33.85. They hold the team lead after day one with Iowa State in second with 18 points while Nebraska has 15 in third place. The Cornhuskers reached their tally in the hammer, placing 3-4-5.
Otto, sixth in the decathlon at last year's Big 12 meet, ended the first day of the multi in third place with a score of 4,189 points through five events. He opened the day with a pair of 900-plus scores in the 100 (10.59, 954) and long jump (24-5, 920). In the shot put a mark of 45-0.5 earned 712 points and a high jump clearance of 6-3.5 claimed 731 points.
Wrapping up day one with the 400, Otto scored 872 points with a time of 48.39 seconds. Kansas State's Mantas Silkauskas leads the event with 4,231 points while Missouri's Mortiz Cleve is runner-up with 4,202 points.
When Otto scored a personal best of 7,355 points to place fourth at the Texas Relays during the first week of April his first day score was 3,933 points. He is currently 256 points ahead of that pace.
Daphne Fitzpatrick, competing in her first heptathlon of the season, ran the 100 hurdles in 14.86 (860), high jumped 5-4.5 (771), and threw the shot 32-10.25 (530). She wrapped up day one with a 26.28 (773) in the 200 for 2,934 total points to sit in sixth place.
Defending champion Megan Wheatley of Nebraska leads the field of 12 heptathletes with 3,551 points. Missouri's Kaela Rorvig is second with 3,266 points while another Cornhusker, Rachel Butler, is third at 3,143.
With the temperature at 72 degrees when the decathlon started at 11 a.m., it reached 88 degrees at 1:30 p.m. as the dec shot put and hept high jump were completed. After reaching a high of 90, the wind picked up to 30 mph creating dust storms and the temperature dropped to the low 80s. By the evening distance races the wind was still steady in the mid 20s with a 79 degree temperature.