SEATTLE, Wash. -- The Arizona State men’s track and field team won its first Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Championship on Saturday, with the women finishing fourth as competition wrapped up at the Dempsey Indoor Center.
Three student-athletes won individual titles and the No. 7 men never relinquished the big lead they built after the first day, cruising to the team’s first-ever victory in the 20th year of the competition.
The men finished with 131.50 points to dominate the overall event, finishing 50 points ahead of runner-up Stanford’s 81.50 points. The women had 68 points on the day to finish in the upper half of the MPSF.
The men’s margin of victory and point total were both the largest in at least a decade at the MPSF championships.
MEN
Chris Benard got things rolling for the Sun Devils by beating his own school record in the triple jump with a leap of 16.43m (53-11.00) to win the competition and set a Dempsey Indoor facility record. The leap automatically qualifies Benard for the NCAA Indoor Championships and ranks him second in the nation.
The senior’s was is the second-best jump in school history all-around, with outdoor marks included as well.
Sophomore Ryan Milus took the third individual MPSF title of the weekend early Saturday, taking the fastest time out of the preliminary round of the 60-meter dash and cruising in the finals in a time of 6.65.
It was the first conference title, indoors or outdoors, for Milus. He will now set his sights on the NCAA Indoor Championships, for which he has already automatically qualified.
Milus led a sweep of the top two spots for ASU, as teammate Daniel Auberry wasn’t far behind in 6.72 seconds. Rashad Ross, fresh off his 200-meter title the previous night, was sixth overall in 6.87 as the Sun Devils combined for 21 points in the event.
Earlier, senior Kelsey Caesar clocked a season best in the 400-meter dash by winning his heat in 47.59 and finishing fifth overall.
Ross and Caesar would also join the men’s 4x400-meter relay along with Chris Burrows and Will Henry to post a runner-up finish to Oregon with a season-best time of 3:09.26 in the final running event of the day.
Junior Jordan Clarke won his first indoor MPSF title in the shot put, edging Arizona’s Bozidar Antunovic in a reversal of last year’s MPSF final. The defending NCAA outdoor champion launched his first throw 18.98m (62-03.25), and that mark was good enough for the victory.
Sophomore Bryan McBride wrapped up an eventful weekend with a fourth-place finish in the high jump with a clearance of 2.17m (7-01.50) and also was able to snag an eighth-place finish in the triple jump to make him a scorer in three events on the weekend.
Junior Nick Happe continued his impressive junior campaign, finishing sixth in the men’s 3,000 meters in a new career-best time of 7:55.08. The time was just under a second shy of the school record of 7:54.27, set by Brandon Bethke in 2010, and ranks Happe third in ASU history and on the bubble for an NCAA berth.
WOMEN
Shelby Houlihan got the scoring started for the ASU women on Saturday in the mile run, clocking a time of 4:41.58 for a fourth-place finish.
In the 400-meter dash that followed shortly after, freshman Brianna Tate scored her first points as a Sun Devil with a seventh-place finish in 54.86, a new career best.
Senior Kayla Sanchez did a little bit of everything on the day, just missing out on scoring in the 400-meter final but coming back less than an hour later to take eighth in the 60-meter dash. Teammate Asiah Gooden was sixth overall in 7.62 seconds.
Sanchez was second in the previous night’s 200-meter dash, and as if that weren’t enough, Sanchez teamed up with Tate as well as Alycia Herring and Keia Pinnick to take fourth in the 4x400-meter relay in 3:37.95.
In the field events, sophomore Anna Jelmini earned runner-up honors in the shot put with a throw of 16.17m (53-00.75), while freshman Alex Hartig finished sixth.
In the pole vault, Shaylah Simpson had her best jump of the year, clearing 3.93m (12-10.75) to finish in a tie for sixth overall.
