Oregon State
Pac-12 Championships
Freshmen Wrap Up Pac-12 T&F Championships Action For OSU
May 12, 2013 | Women's Track & Field
May 12, 2013
Team Scores
LOS ANGELES, Calif. - Three freshmen wrapped up the action for Oregon State at the Pac-12 Track and Field Championships at USC on Sunday after competing in the triple jump, discus and 5K in Los Angeles. Michele Turney's triple jump and Kayla Fleskes' discus throw were the first for OSU in those events at the conference meet since 1988.
Turney, a freshman from Crescent Valley High School in Corvallis, jumped 38-7.75 on her first attempt to finish 12th. That effort was the second-best mark of her inaugural collegiate campaign and was only short of her school-record leap of 39-0.25 from the first meet at the Whyte Track and Field Center on March 23.
The top freshman triple jumper in the conference entering the weekend, Turney held serve and was the best first-year entry in the competition Sunday. With the jump, the local product became the school's first horizontal jumper at the conference championships since 1988 when Dave Turnbull finished 11th in the long jump with a mark of 21-7.25.
In the discus, freshman Kayla Fleskes finished 16th with a mark of 129-05 and became the first Beaver in that event at the Pac-10/12 Championships in 25 years. In 1988, Beth Nygren (151-00) and John Thomas (152-07) also threw the discus when the meet was held at UCLA.
The last of the first-year trio, Kira Kelly, ran to a 23rd place finish in the 5K with a time of 17:51.30.
Oregon State student-athletes will next grace the track at the NCAA West Regional Preliminaries in Austin, Texas in two weeks. Sara Almen, who yesterday finished third in the high jump with a mark of 5-10, and Kinsey Gomez, who ran a 16:24.17 5K at Mt. SAC in mid-April, both put themselves amongst regional qualifiers earlier this season.
The two could also be joined by Taylor Nowlin, who ran a school-record 10:36.75 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase yesterday. Entering the weekend, that time would have placed the junior among the necessary top 48 in the West Region to earn a trip to Austin.
Support Oregon State University Athletics by making your tax deductible donation to Our Beaver Nation. For more information follow this link or call 541-737-2370.
Follow Oregon State Athletics On YouTube.
Players Mentioned
