Field Events Return At John Knight Twilight
CORVALLIS, Ore. – Following a weekend which saw five distance runners compete in the San Francisco Bay Area, Oregon State’s throwers and jumpers will return to action and make up the majority of their team’s entries when the Beavers head to Monmouth for Western Oregon’s eighth annual John Knight Twilight on Friday. Field events begin at 1 p.m. and track events are slated to start at 4 p.m.
OSU’s competitors will consist of 18 student-athletes in 15 different events, including the hurdles, jumps, throws, steeple, 100m, 800m and 1,500m.
Held at McArthur Field on WOU’s campus, the John Knight Twilight honors former WOU track and field head coach John Knight. Knight coached WOU's track and field program from 1989 to 2003 and had 17 individual national champions during that time, and won national coach of the year honors in 2003 (NCAA) and 1993 (NAIA).
Other schools at the meet include Western Oregon, Willamette, Northwest Christian and Concordia, among many others. Tickets for the event are $6 for adults and $4 for non-WOU students and seniors.
A large portion of Oregon State’s throws and jumps team will see its first action since the Willamette Invite on March 29. At that meet, Helen Ann Haun improved her school-record height in the pole vault to 11’ 7.75” and will continue her trailblazing ways along with Annie Sidor at 2:30 p.m. Earlier this season, those two became the school’s first-ever female competitors in the event.
Melissa Ausman, who hasn’t competed since the Oregon Preview on March 22, is entered in the hammer, shot put and discus. It will be the freshman’s initial try in the first of that trio at 1 p.m. At Hayward Field three weeks ago, Ausman PR’d in the discus with a throw of 150’ 10”, the fifth-best mark in school history.
She will be joined in the throws by Rachel Picknell (shot put, discus, hammer), Kayla Fleskes (discus, hammer, javelin) and Tricia Ingraham (shot put). At last season’s John Knight Twilight, Fleskes PR’d in javelin (132’ 2”) and threw the discus 136’ 3.75”, a personal best at the time which she would later surpass at the Oregon Twilight (145’ 1”).
Justine Bird, Allison Jackon, Jessica Lautenbach, Bethany Imperial, Michele Turney, Kaylene Rust and Kaitlyn Mason will represent Oregon State in the jumps. At the Willamette Invite Lautenbach and Jackson tied for second in the high jump with clearances at 5’ 2.25”.
The quartet of Imperial, Turney, Rust and Mason will compete in both the long jump at triple jump, with those events commencing at 3:30 p.m. Turney’s 38’ 6.75” in the triple jump at the Oregon Preview is OSU’s best in that discipline this season while Rust’s long jump PR of 17’ 6” at the OSU Invite on March 8 tops the Beavers in 2014.
On the track, Rust and Mason will get things going for the Beavers in the 100m at 4:55 p.m. It will be the first 100 for Rust at Oregon State and just the third for Mason. The junior sprinted at both home meets in 2013, running 13.05 at the tri-meet against Portland and Willamette and 13.27 at the OSU High Performance.
Lacey London will race the 800 at 5:15 p.m. She ran 2:22.65 at the distance in her only race of 2014 at Willamette and is ninth on OSU’s all-time list in the event (2:13.10).
The 1,500 will feature Holly Cavalluzzo, Adrienne Demaree and Monica Anderson at 6:25 p.m. Turney is entered in the 400 hurdles and Haley Hunt and Hilary Sharpe will run their first 3,000 steeples of 2014 to close the night at 7:40 p.m.
The Beavers will also run a 4x100 relay squads at 4 p.m. OSU has posted 4x100 times of 50.83 (OSU Invite) and 50.95 (Willamette Invite) this season. Mason, Rust and Turney have participated in both those relays and will be joined for the first time this year by Lautenbach on Friday.
Allie Church (100/200) and Kristiane Width (1,500) will join Sara Almen (high jump) and Lucinda Howard (long jump) as unattached entries in Monmouth.
