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By Steve Carpenter
HCC Sports Information Director
Thursday, May 20, 2009
Defending national
champion and top-ranked decathlete Kurt Felix of Central Arizona put
the rest of the field on notice Thursday that they are going to have
to catch him to beat him at the 2009 NJCAA Outdoor Track and Field
Championship at Gowans Stadium.
Felix captured 2 of
5 events on Day 1 of the 10-event competition, scoring 3,879 points.
Iowa Central’s Jamal Currica is second at 3,741 points.
Felix finished
fourth in the opening event, the 100 meters, with a time of 11.37
seconds. He then won the long jump at 24 feet, 5.5 inches. He was
second in the shot put at 38-10.5. Felix won the high jump, going
6-8.25. The then finished third in the 400 meters, posing a time of
51.65 seconds.
Other Decathlon
event winners on Day 1 were Cloud County’s Robert Rolfe in the 400
(49.19), Central Arizona’s Omar Jones in the shot put (40-6) and
Currica in the 100 meters (10.85).
Two men’s individual
national championships were awarded on Thursday. Rend Lake’s Stephen
Sambu used an impressive final three laps to capture the men’s
10,000-meter title going away. Sambu ran a time of 30:53.32, beating
runner-up Stephen Dak of Iowa Central by 19 full seconds.
Barton’s Max Alonso
got the first half of his bid for a discus/shot put gold medal
sweep, winning the discus with a top effort of 170 feet, 6 inches.
Neosho County’s Zak Thompson was second at 155-1.
Preliminaries for
all running events begin on Friday. |
