Portland State junior Joenisha Vinson and 51 other college women in the entire United States have accomplished a rare feat this season - scoring 5,000-or-more points in the heptathlon. When you consider that there are more than 400,000 student-athletes that compete in the NCAA, that's quite an accomplishment.

On April 14, the Phoenix, Ariz., native finished the seven-event epic with a score of 5,227 points to win the California Invitiational and capture the Big Sky's top-score this season. She moved up to No. 2 all-time at Portland State, only 129 points shy of the record, and currently ranks 26th in Division I this season.

"I didn't expect (that score), but I wasn't surprised because the hurdle race went as I expected it to," said Vinson. "But overall I was really happy with my heptathlon score, a 223 point PR I think. I was really happy with that."

Vinson broke her own PSU record in the 100-meter hurdles with her time of 13.83 seconds to scored 1,003 points, becoming the first Viking to ever score 1,000-or-more points in a heptathlon event.

But before Vinson went on to record her career-day in Asuza, Calif., she almost gave up on the heptathlon - even with the facts and figures on her side. "Out of seven events, one made me want to quit the heptathlon all together," said a retrospective Vinson.

THE DECISION
Vinson's admitted frustration was with the high jump, which nearly drew her away from competing in the heptathlon. In the weeks leading up to the competition in Asuza, Vinson had not cleared five feet since the indoor track season.

She failed to clear five feet (4-11.75) in the heptathlon at the Cal Multi March 23, which was eventually cancelled due to high winds and heavy rains.

The frustration began to build up and after Willamette Invitational 10 days later, Vinson approached Assistant Coach Seth Henson and told him "'(The high jump) was frustrating me a lot.' I was just ready to stop doing the whole heptathlon I was so mad. So I talked to him and told him I didn't want to (compete at the Mt. Sac Relays). I said 'There's no point, because how am I going to be successful in the hep if I can't do the high jump?'

"I was mad enough to just put (the hepathlon) behind me," said Vinson.

"Coach Seth told me I could be nationally ranked ... And that I needed to keep working at (the high jump). Mt. Sac was supposed to be my last hep, until I scored what I scored.  It felt really good to redeem myself and I felt like I needed to redeem myself. "

"She does not like to get beat and she might never say that in any interview, but she's truly the most competitive person on this team. Her and Geronne (Black) by far," smiled Henson.

He recalled the conversation with Vinson and said "I made a promise to her. Because I had already booked the tickets, I said 'Joenisha we're going to go to Mt. Sac, we're going to put up a score and I just want you to do the seven events so that way if you're done with this, you know that you gave it everything you had one more time and you got to finish the multi.'

"Had it not gone so well, that probably would have been Joenisha's last multi."

After her amazing performance, Henson told Vinson it was still her choice if she wanted to continue doing the heptathlon and attempt to qualify for the NCAA Championship. "I said 'Joenisha, this is still up to you,'" told Henson. "You know that you have a score that is about 100 points off of qualifying for the national meet and I'm going to leave it up to you if you want to do the heptathlon at conference.'"

Vinson recalled "Coach told me, 'it's your decision,' He had faith in me - that I could do it and work through the high jump because it was really stressing me out."

Reflecting on the conversation, Henson said "That was a learning experience for me. I had to back off and let her decide. And that's why we have the opportunity to go to Sacramento, move through the seven events, and I think that we'll be very happy with the end result."

JUST DO IT
After some time to think about it, Vinson told Henson she wanted to go for it. Her approach to the hep is a simple ideology: "I just want to get a better score than I did last time. I want to improve my marks in each of the events. A PR in every one of them would be nice, just to improve my score." And with a big smile, she concluded "And go under two minutes, 30 seconds in the 800-meters - at least 2:25."

"She's one of the best hurdlers that's a multi in the nation, she's one of the very few and the only one in our conference that scores over 1,000 points in that event," said a glowing Henson.

"I think her ability in some ways are like Nick (Trubachik's) - to not get too up or too down outwardly. She doesn't let her emotions effect her. I know when she doesn't high jump well she's frustrated but it doesn't show up in the shot put or the 200. It's like she'll just move from one event to the next."

Henson believes there's a lot of room for improvement in Vinson's heptathlon abilities. "I still don't know how far she can throw the javelin and I don't know how far she can throw the shot put because technically we have so much work to do but she still manages to sneak in good marks."

BREAKING IT DOWN
Starting May 11 and ending on the 12th, Vinson will attempt to become the second Viking multi in as many years to qualify for the NCAA Championships under Henson at the Big Sky Championships. Last year, he guided Big Sky Champion Nick Trubachik to a seventh-place finish at the NCAA Championship and an eighth-place finish at U.S. Track and Field Championships two weeks later.

If she succeeds, Vinson would become the second heptathlete to qualify for the NCAA Championship, the first since making the jump to Division I, as Robin Unger qualified for three championships (1994-96) and won national titles in 1995 and 1996. Unger is the school-record holder with a score of 5,356 points.

No Viking has ever won the heptathlon at the Big Sky Championship.

In closing, Vinson can high jump. At last year's Mt. Sac Relay heptathlon, she cleared her PR of 5-3.25, the ninth-best mark in school history.

In an article written before last year's Big Sky Championship, Head Coach Ronnye Harrison said "Joenisha has raw talents that are off the charts and she has that one thing that cannot be coached - the will and drive to win. And that's what keeps her excelling at the level that she is excelling at, because she will not quit."

To read last year's article, click here.

HOW TO FOLLOW
For event-by-event updates on Vinson and teammate Luke Leddige in the decathlon, follow Live Stats from Sacramento, the Vikings Facebook and/or Twitter fan pages for scores and updates. For Big Sky Championship exclusive stories and videos, check GoViks.com throughout the week.