Tuesday, May 1, 2018

NAMPA, Idaho – It was a big day for the freshmen as Central Washington’s Braydon Maier and Seattle Pacific’s Renick Meyer claimed titles at the GNAC Combined Event Championships, which finished on Tuesday at Northwest Nazarene’s Brian & Nichole Bohner Track.

Maier completed the indoor/outdoor double in the multi-events. The GNAC champion in the indoor pentathlon came up from fifth place to score the decathlon title with a score of 6,751 points, thanks in part to top-three finishes in three second day events. The NCAA Championships provisional qualifier is also No. 8 on the GNAC All-Time List.

Maier’s CWU teammate, Michael Forster, finished in a close second with a score of 6,732 points while Concordia’s Giovanni Brown finished third with 6,690 points.

Meyer, meanwhile, won the long jump and placed second in the javelin to secure the heptathlon title with a score of 5,114 points. She and teammate Scout Cai, who finished second with 5,017 points, became the first GNAC athletes since 2014 to score over 5,000 points in the seven-event discipline. Central Washington’s HarLee Ortega, who led after the first day, finished third with a score of 4,945 points.

In the decathlon, Maier again was the beneficiary of an injury to teammate Kodiak Landis. The first-day leader was hampered by the injury throughout the second day of the competition. Maier won the 110-meter hurdles in a time of 15.23 seconds, added a second-place finish in the pole vault at 15 feet, 3 inches, and also finished second in the javelin with a mark of 158 feet, 5 inches.

Brown, meanwhile, kept pace by finishing just short of the GNAC decathlon record in the discus, winning with a mark of 150 feet, 6 inches, and closed the day by winning the 1,500 meters in 4:31.21. Northwest Nazarene’s Payton Lewis, meanwhile, took the lead for a short time after he won the eighth event of the day, the pole vault, with a GNAC decathlon record of 16 feet, 2.75 inches. The Nighthawks’ Micah Tranch won the javelin with a mark of 176 feet, 9 inches.

In the heptathlon, Meyer’s day was punctuated by a GNAC record in the long jump. Her of 20 feet, 5 inches, broke the record of 19 feet, 8 inches, set by Seattle Pacific's Stephanie Huffman in 2002 and matched by SPU's Ali Worthen in 2013.  The mark ties her for fourth in Division II this season. Meyer went on to finish second in the javelin with a mark of 122 feet, 9 inches. Western Oregon’s Darian Wilson won the javelin with a mark of 137 feet, 4 inches, while Central Washington’s Katie Collins won the 800 meters in 2:17.36.

Team points from the GNAC Combined Event Championships carry over to the GNAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships, which run May 11-12 in Monmouth, Ore. Seattle Pacific will carry 18 points into the women’s competition while Central Washington will take nine points in. The Wildcats’ men will carry 21 points into the conference meet while Northwest Nazarene picked up 13 points.