May 14, 2010
Columbia, Missouri - Freshman Sam Humphreys claimed Texas A&M's first victory at the Big 12 Championships with a winning javelin toss of 243 feet, 9 inches (74.31 meters) on Friday at Walton Stadium on the University of Missouri campus.
Through the first day of the three-day event the Aggie men have 11 points while the A&M women scored six points. There were two finals for the women and three finals for the men on the initial day of the conference meet.
Deidre Tarver added a point with an eighth-place finish in the hammer.
Humphreys had the top mark in the conference coming into the meet with his school record of 251-8. He earned A&M's 27th individual title at the Big 12 Outdoor meet since the conference formed in 1996-97. Humphreys also claimed the third Big 12 javelin title by an Aggie, joining Luke Marrs (235-3 in 2001) and Jarred Matthews (222-9 in 2005).
In second place through four rounds of the javelin, Humphreys claimed the lead in round five by three feet, or one meter (74.31 to 73.31), over the 240-6 from runner-up Adam Wolkins of Nebraska.
"Wolkins provided some good competition," Humphreys noted. "He was throwing well and pushed me along. He got me fired up and kept me on the edge. It was a nice day, but things just weren't clicking for me."
Humphreys briefly took over the lead back in round two with a mark of 238-2 (72.59), but Wolkins responded on the very next throw with his best effort of the competition. The last thrower in the final three rounds, Wolkins hit 239-9 (73.08) on the final attempt of the day.
"I wasn't having a good day to start and it took until the fifth round for me to finally get a good mark out there," said Humphreys, who threw in a meet for the first time since setting his PR of 251-8 in Oregon on April 10. "It's been a month since I've thrown and I was off rhythm."
Joining Humphreys in earning points for Texas A&M was Jon Gomez, who placed eighth for one point. Gomez turned in a mark of 202-2 (61.63) as the first thrower of the competition.
"I'll look past my throwing today and focus on the points we scored in this event," said Humphreys. "Seeing how points matter, I think we did pretty good."
Early morning racing in favorable cool conditions provided the setting for Katherine Devlin to run a career best time of 34:51.67 and place fourth in the 10,000 meters. The first final of the Big 12 Championships supplied the Aggies with five points from Devlin's effort.
Lisa Koll of Iowa State, the collegiate record holder of this event, won her fourth league title with a meet record time of 33:51.74. She and a pair of Cyclone teammates pulled away from the field after a conservative early pace. Iowa State claimed the top three spots and added a sixth place finish for 27 points in the race.
Amid the slow pace to start the race Devlin was part of an eight-runner group. Later in the race she was in a four-runner pack with a pair of Kansas runners and the fourth Iowa State runner.
"I didn't think it was going to go out so slow, but I remained patient," Devlin noted. "I was a little frustrated with the first mile. Then when Coach Waters told me to make my move things worked out really well. I'm very pleased with the time and happy I could earn points for the team."
Pulling ahead of that foursome Devlin established herself into fourth place over the final five laps. Allie Marquis of Kansas finished fifth, nine seconds behind Devlin.
In bettering her previous PR of 35:05.17 from her third place finish at Penn Relays Devlin remains the No. 4 performer on the A&M all-time list and improves to the No. 6 performance.
Tarver reached a distance of 174-7 (53.21) in the opening round and made the final. She wasn't able to better that effort in the following five rounds and claimed one point as eighth place. Tarver entered the meet seeded 10th with her career best of 177-6.
In the men's hammer Cole Knuth placed 12th with a mark of 176-9 (53.88).
Trinity Otto completed the first day of the decathlon in fourth place with a score of 3,962 points. Missouri's Nick Adcock leads after five events with a score of 4,018 points.
Otto started with a 10.82 in the 100, then long jumped (6.97). A 46-7.5 (14.21) shot put followed. In the high jump Otto cleared 6-0 (1.83) and he completed the first day with a 49.02 in the 400.
The first day of the heptathlon ended with Daphne Fitzpatrick currently in second place with 3,353 points while Bonnie Richardson is fourth with 3,108 points. Nebraska's Chantae McMillan leads through four events with a total of 3,388.
Fitzpatrick ran 14.25 in the 100 hurdles, cleared 5-8.75 (1.75) in the high jump, had a 36-1.25 (11.00) in the shot put and ran 24.87 in the 200. Richardson went 14.50 in the hurdles, cleared 5-4.25 (1.63), had a 35-9.5 (10.91) shot put and closed with a 25.53 in the 200.
Action continues Saturday at 10 a.m. with the continuation of the multi-events. Field events and running prelims start at 1 p.m.