RESULTS (PDF)

BOZEMAN, Mont. — So nice, he did it twice.
 
Redshirt senior Donté Robinson became just the second athlete in the history of the Big Sky Conference to repeat as heptathlon champion, joining PSU hall-of-famer Nick Trubachik who won back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010. Robinson won his second title with a score of 5,394 points Friday – 189 points clear of the No. 2 athlete, Montana State's Wyatt Thompson-Siporen at 5,205.
 
The 5,394 points Robinson scored Friday marked the best winning score in the heptathlon at the conference meet since Montana's Austin Emry won with a score of 5,568 points at the 2014 Big Sky Indoor Championships. Robinson's score was also just two points off the personal best of 5,396 points that he set at the UW Invitational, Jan. 25-26, earlier this season.
 
Robinson entered the day with a 42-point lead after Thursday, and quickly expanded that with a good showing in the 60-meter hurdles. Robinson set a seasonal-best time while finishing second overall in 8.41 seconds, beating his time at the UW Invitational by more than a tenth of a second.
 
Thompson-Siporen – second behind Robinson after the first day of the competition – finished the hurdles in 9.23 seconds, giving Robinson a 227-point lead over his closest competition after the first even Friday. Weber State's Caleb Whitney – fourth after the first day – moved within 122 points of Robinson after winning the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.28 seconds, but Whitney would soon fade in the pole vault.
 
The pole vault was the big question mark for Robinson against Thompson-Siporen, who came into the Big Sky meet leading the conference in the event. Thompson-Siporen set his heptathlon personal best with a clearance at 16-04.75 (5.00m), more than a foot better than Robinson's best of 15-01.00 (4.60m) coming into the meet. What's more, Thompson-Siporen passed on all heights until everyone else was done with the pole vault, meaning the specter of a big mark from him that could flip the standings hung over the rest of the field throughout the competition.
 
It didn't seem to bother Robinson, however, as he cleared the bar at 4.23 meters, passed at 4.33, and then hit three straight first-attempt clearances at 4.43, 4.53 and 4.63 meters. Robinson's clearance at 4.63 beat the personal best he set at the UW Invitational earlier this season, and meant Thompson-Siporen would have had to clear 5.37 meters if he were to draw level with Robinson going into the 1,000 meters. Thompson-Siporen wasn't able to pull off any such miracle – the world heptathlon best in the pole vault is 5.60 meters, after all – and instead topped out at 5.03 meters.
 
That gave Robinson a 106-point lead going into the 1,000 meters, and essentially wrapped up the Big Sky title for Robinson, whose personal best in the 1,000 meters – 2:45.8 – was well ahead of Thompson-Siporen's best of 2:59.7.
 
The only remaining drama was whether Robinson would break Trubachik's school record in the heptathlon. Trubachik set the school record with a score of 5,432 points while winning his second heptathlon title in 2010.
 
Robinson needed to run 2:50.1 or faster in the 1,000 meters to beat the record, slower than the personal best he set at the UW Invitational. However, with Bozeman at close to 5,000 feet above sea level, the elevation that had bolstered Robinson in the 60 meters, 60-meter hurdles and high jump earlier in the competition, went against him in the 1,000 meters. Robinson went out with the lead group at the start of the race, but couldn't hold up the pace and finished in 2:53.94.
 
Robinson ended up finishing seventh in the 1,000 meters, his lowest finish in any event over the two days of the heptathlon. Outside of the 1,000, Robinson finished fifth or better in the first six events of the competition, and finished third or better in all events outside the shot put and 1,000 meters.
 
Besides Robinson, sophomore Natalie Cummings advanced to the finals of the women's 60 meters with a new personal-best time of 7.67 seconds. Cummings' time placed her seventh overall in the prelims, well ahead of her ranking coming into the meet, which was 17th in the 60 meters.
 
Senior Kaila Gibson scored for the Viking women with a sixth-place finish in the women's 5,000 meters, crossing the line in 17:35.12. The Vikings have only scored three times in the women's indoor 5,000 meters, and Gibson accounts for two of those times after she also scored with a seventh-place finish last season. Camelia Mayfield recorded the highest finish ever by a Viking in the event when she placed fourth in 2014.
 
The Viking women also picked up a point from their distance medley relay team, which placed eighth overall in a time of 12:30.73. Linnaea Kavulich, Kristen O'Handley, Delaney White and Sarah Medved ran the relay for the Vikings, and the foursome moved up to eighth all time in the event at PSU with their time. No women's distance medley relay team had entered the top 10 all time at PSU since 2015.
 
The Vikings men's distance medley relay team added a point themselves Friday, as a young group of Vikings placed eighth in a time of 10:41.95. Sophomore Will Payton joined three freshmen in Josh Snyder, Chase Lovercheck and Drew Seidel on the relay, and the youngsters nearly cracked the all-time top 10 at PSU, finishing just over a second off the current No. 10 time of 10:40.35.
 
Events get back underway for the Vikings at 12 p.m. (MT) Saturday, the final day of the Big Sky Indoor Championships.
 
Big Sky Indoor Championships
Worthington Arena
Bozeman, Mont.
Feb. 21-22, 2019
 
Women's Results:
60m (Prelims): 7. Natalie Cummings, 7.67; 26. Kameron Smith, 8.05. 200m (Prelims): 20. Natalie Cummings, 25.90; 22. Kristen O'Handley, 25.97. 800m (Prelims): 15. McKenna Martin, 2:33.59. 5,000m (Final): 6. Kaila Gibson, 17:35.12; 17. Phoebe Jacques, 18:03.67. 60H (Prelims): 17. Alexis Buckhaults, 9.05; T-20. Kristen O'Handley, 9.13. Distance Medley Relay: 8. Portland State 'A' (Kavulich, O'Handley, White, Medved), 12:30.73. Long Jump: 21. Nicole Terry, 15-09.75 (4.82m). Pentathlon: 10. Kristen O'Handley, 3,384 points (60H: 9. 9.24, 860 points; High Jump: 6. 5-04.50 (1.64m), 783 points; Shot Put: 10. 31-03.75 (9.54m), 499 points; Long Jump: 9. 16-10.50 (5.14m), 598 points; 800m: 15. 2:34.54, 637 points). 
 
Men's Results:
60m (Prelims): 24. Se Min Park, 7.62. 400m (Prelims): Zack Davis, DNF. 800m (Prelims): 12. Chase Lovercheck, 1:56.63; 19. Austen Hvidsten, 2:00.71. 5,000m (Final): 20. Jason Rae, 16:19.50. 60H (Prelims): 16. Donté Robinson, 8.58. Distance Medley Relay: 9. Portland State 'A' (Snyder, Payton, Lovercheck, Seidel), 10:41.95. Long Jump: 15. Jaron Barrow, 21-09.50 (6.64m). Heptathlon: 1. Donté Robinson, 5,394 points (60m: 3. 7.09, 851 points; Long Jump: 3. 22-06.25 (6.86m), 781 points; Shot Put: 5. 37-00.25 (11.28m), 563 points; High Jump: 1. 6-06.25 (1.99m), 794 points; 60H: 2. 8.41, 881 points; Pole Vault: 2. 15-02.25 (4.63m), 799 points; 1,000m: 7. 2:53.94, 725 points).