Complete Meet Notes (PDF)

THE STARTING BLOCK
The NCAA Division III Northwest Conference will serve as hosts for the Portland State track & field team this weekend. At least two of the conference's schools will, as the Vikings compete at the Rich Allen Classic on the campus of George Fox University, and the L&C Spring Break Open on the campus of Lewis & Clark College. Both meets will take place Saturday.
 
The Viking sprinters and field-event athletes will head to the Rich Allen Classic, which takes place at the Stoffer Family Stadium on the school's Newberg, Ore., campus.
 
Redshirt senior Donté Robinson will headline the group going to the Rich Allen Classic, as he sees his first official action since defending his Big Sky title in the heptathlon at the Big Sky Indoor Championships last month. Robinson will compete in the pole vault, discus and 200 meters at the meet.
 
Robinson set a new personal best in the pole vault at every meet he competed at during the indoor season. Robinson set his current indoor best with a clearance at 15-02.25 (4.63m) during the heptathlon competition of the Big Sky indoor meet. That's close to nine inches higher than his current outdoor personal best, which he set at 14-05.50 (4.41m) while winning the decathlon at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships last season.
 
Griffin Johnson and Braden Masanga will join Robinson in the pole vault, while junior Angela Mumford competes in the women's discus opposite Robinson in the men's event.
 
Sophomore Natalie Cummings will also race in the women's 100 and 200 meters at the Rich Allen Classic after she scored a point for the Vikings with an eighth-place finish in the finals of the 60 meters at last month's Big Sky Indoor Championships. Cummings finished the 60 meters in 7.76 seconds, which would have been a new personal best for her if she hadn't run 7.67 in the prelims the day before.
 
The Vikings' distance runners, meanwhile, will take center stage at the L&C Spring Break Open, which takes place at the Eldon Fix Track on the Lewis & Clark campus. The L&C Spring Break Open kicked off standout outdoor seasons for the Vikings' Sarah Medved and Alex Cisneros last season. 
 
Medved ran her first-ever steeplechase at last year's meet and broke the school record in the event with a time of 10:58.17. No Viking had ever cracked 11 minutes before in the steeplechase, but Medved did it in her first race, and would go on to do it three more times later in the season.
 
Medved shaved more than 36 seconds off her own school record with a time of 10:21.56 at the Mt. SAC Relays, a time that qualified her for the NCAA West Prelims at the end of the season. Medved then went on to win the steeplechase in 10:30.35 at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships, making her the Vikings' first Big Sky champion in the men's or women's steeplechase in program history.
 
Medved went on to become the first Viking to compete in the men's or women's steeplechase at the NCAA West Prelims, where she placed 40th in the quarterfinals of the event in 10:35.77.
 
Medved won't be competing in the steeplechase Saturday, but will instead join a group of eight Vikings in the women's 5,000 meters. Besides Medved, Alana Baldwin-Joiner, Phoebe Brown, Kaila Gibson, Phoebe Jacques, Linnaea Kavulich, Monica Salazar and Delaney White will all compete in the event.
 
Gibson scored for the Vikings in the indoor 5,000 meters last month at the Big Sky meet, just the third time the Vikings have had someone score for them in the event, though the second time for Gibson. Gibson also placed ninth while finishing the cross country 5,000 meters in 16:58.7 at the Big Sky meet during the fall. That gave Gibson the first All-Big Sky honor of her career, and made her only the second Viking ever to crack 17 minutes in the cross country 5k.
 
Cisneros, meanwhile, returns to the men's 5,000 meters at the L&C Spring Break Open. Last year's Lewis & Clark meet was the sight of Cisneros' only outdoor 5,000-meter race last season, but it was a good one as Cisneros won the event in a new personal-best 14:28.96. Cisneros' time moved him up to sixth all time in the outdoor 5,000 meters, making him the first Viking to enter the career top 10 since Blake Flanders in 2005.
 
Like Medved, Cisneros followed up with an even bigger time at the Mt. SAC Relays later in the season. Cisneros broke a 34-year-old school record in the 10,000 meters while finishing in 29:25.74 at the meet, shaving 30 seconds off his own personal best in the event. Cisneros beat Dave Henderson's old record of 29:30.04 by over four seconds, which Henderson set in 1984.
 
Cisneros joins 12 other Vikings in the men's 5,000 meters Saturday, as Cody Jones, Nigel Leonis, Jason Rae, Drew Seidel, Elmer Shelevy, Josh Snyder, Andy Solano, Erik Solano, Andrew Stafford, Ian Vickstrom and Collin Werth are all entered in the event as well.
 
The Vikings will also have runners entered in the men's and women's 1,500 meters Saturday, as well as the men's 800 meters. The first event of the day for the Vikings will take place at the Rich Allen Classic, however, as Megan Cornett, Taylor Matsuzaki, Savanna Milroy and Kristen O'Handley all compete in the women's javelin at 10 a.m. (PT).
 
MEET INFO
March 16 – Rich Allen Classic – Newberg, Ore. (Stoffer Family Stadium)
March 16 – L&C Spring Break Open – Portland, Ore. (Eldon Fix Track)
 
RICH ALLEN CLASSIC SCHEDULE
Saturday, March 16
Field Events
Start (PT)                    Events (PSU entries)
10 a.m.                        Women's Javelin (Cornett, Matsuzaki, Milroy, O'Handley)
After W-Jav at 10        Men's Javelin (Rwandika)
10 a.m.                        Women's Shot Put (Mumford)
11 a.m.                        Women's Long Jump (O'Handley, Terry)
After W-PV at 11         Men's Pole Vault (Johnson, Masanga, Robinson)
After W-LJ at 11          Women's Triple Jump (Buckhaults, Elliott)
After M-HJ at 12:30    Women's High Jump (Dunleavy, Elliott)
After W-Ham              Men's & Women's Discus (Men: Robinson; Women: Mumford)
 
Running Events*
Start (PT)                    Events (PSU entries)
7th event                     Women's 100-Meter Hurdles (Buckhaults, O'Handley)
11th event                   Women's 100 Meters (Cummings, Smith, Terry)
17th event                   Women's 200 Meters (Cummings, Smith)
18th event                   Men's 200 Meters (Robinson)
 
*Events start at 11 a.m. with the women's steeplechase and then follow a rolling schedule after that. Times listed for PSU events are just that event's order on the track then.
 
Saturday, March 16
Running Events
Start (PT)                    Events (PSU entries)
11:10 a.m.                   Women's 1,500 Meters (Martin)
11:35 a.m.                   Men's 1,500 Meters (Hvidsten, Jemison, Lovercheck, Tolander)
1:55 p.m.                     Men's 800 Meters (Maule, Payton)
3:30 p.m.                     Women's 5,000 Meters (Baldwin-Joiner, Brown, Gibson, Jacques, Kavulich, Medved, Salazar, White)
4:15 p.m.                     Men's 5,000 Meters (Cisneros, Jones, Leonis, Rae, Seidel, Shelevy, Snyder, Ramirez, Solano, A., Solano, E., Stafford, Vickstrom, Werth)
 
UPCOMING
The Vikings stay in-state for another meet next week, as they head to Salem, Ore., for the Willamette Invitational on March 23.
 
LAST TIME OUT
The Vikings opened their outdoor season with a select group of athletes competing at the Willamette Opener, March 2, at the Charles Bowles Track in Salem, Ore. Twelve different Vikings competed at the meet, with Andrew Stafford finishing as the highest-placing Viking as he and freshman Mitchell Tolander placed third and fourth, respectively, in the men's 800 meters. Stafford finished a second off his personal best with a time of 2:00.29, while Tolander finished in 2:00.79.

Liam Jemison led a group of seven Vikings in the men's 1,500 meters while placing 15th in 4:13.29. Jayson Maule, running his first 1,500-meter race as a Viking, finished three-tenths of a second behind Jemison in 4:13.56. Twin brothersAndy Solano and Erik Solanoalso finished within footsteps of each other in 4:16.19 and 4:16.54, respectively. Erik's time marked a PSU best for him, beating his time of 4:16.75 at last season's Pacific Open.
 
Freshman Collin Werth, senior Nigel Leonis and sophomore Cody Jones all ran their first 1,500-meter races as Vikings, and finished in 4:29.64, 4:41.87 and 4:44.04, respectively.
 
A trio of Viking women ran in their own 1,500-meter races Saturday, with freshman Phoebe Brown leading the pack with a time of 5:10.84. Sophomore Alana Baldwin-Joiner followed in 5:18.54 – beating her prep personal best of 5:20 in the 1,500 meters – while freshman Monica Salazar finished in 5:19.16.
 
ROBINSON GOES FOR FOURTH STRAIGHT MULTI-EVENT TITLE DURING OUTDOOR SEASON
Redshirt senior Donté Robinson defended his Big Sky heptathlon title at the Big Sky Indoor Championships earlier this season, and will be looking to become the first men's athletes in the history of the Big Sky Conference to win four straight multi-event titles when he defends his decathlon title at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships, May 8-11, in Missoula, Mont.
 
Robinson already joined elite company when he swept the multi-event titles at last year's Big Sky meets. Robinson became just the second Viking ever to sweep both the heptathlon and decathlon titles in a single year, joining PSU hall-of-famer Nick Trubachik, who swept the titles in 2010 – the season he went on to become the Vikings' first NCAA first-team All-American.
 
Robinson and Trubachik are also the only athletes to repeat as Big Sky champion in the heptathlon. No athlete has repeated as the Big Sky decathlon champion since Idaho State's Nathan Capps won back-to-back titles in 2006 and 2007.
 
Robinson missed breaking Trubachik's school record in the heptathlon by only 36 points at the UW Invitational, but could be chasing Trubachik's record in the decathlon during the outdoor season. Trubachik set the school record with a score of 7,510 points at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championships, where he earned his All-American honors with a seventh-place finish in the event. Robinson set his best in the decathlon at 7,307 points while winning the event at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships last season.
 
CISNEROS COMING OFF HISTORIC 2018 SEASON
Redshirt senior Alex Cisneros will be more excited than anyone to get outdoors. Cisneros did not compete until the Big Sky Indoor Championships during the indoor season, and had to sit out the cross country season in the fall due to exhausting his eligibility. Cisneros became the first Viking to qualify for the NCAA West Prelims in the men's 10,000 meters after breaking a 34-year-old school record in the event last outdoor season. Cisneros broke the 10,000-meter record with his finish in 29:25.74 at the Mt. SAC Relays, making him the first Viking to crack 29:30 in the 10k.
 
Cisneros also broke the school records in the indoor 3,000 and 5,000 meters earlier in 2018, and became the first Viking since 2005 to crack the top 10 all time in the outdoor 5,000 meters despite running through a steady downpour at his first outdoor meet of the season last year.
 
GIBSON, MEDVED READY TO PUSH EACH OTHER IN FINAL SEASON TOGETHER
Training partners Kaila Gibson and Sarah Medved have been reliable headliners for the Portland State distance runners so far this season, and should be again during the outdoor season.
 
During the indoor season, Gibson scored for the Vikings with a sixth-place finish at the Big Sky meet in the women's indoor 5,000 meters – just the third time a Viking has scored in the event, though the second time for Gibson. Medved, meanwhile, anchored the Vikings' distance medley relay team that scored with an eighth-place finish.
 
Gibson also shaved 20 seconds off her own record in the indoor 5,000 meters at the UW Invitational on Jan. 25 this season. Gibson also moved up to third all time in the 3,000 meters with her time of 9:52.40 at the UW Indoor Open last season.
 
The two really pushed each other to greater heights during the fall cross country season, however. Gibson and Medved became the first pair of Viking teammates to earn All-Big Sky honors in the same race at the Big Sky Cross Country Championships. Gibson placed ninth for her highest finish ever at a Big Sky cross country meet, while Medved placed 10th after also placing 10th in 2016. Medved then took the lead at the NCAA West Regional while the pair placed 39th and 40th overall, respectively, making them the first Viking teammates to place together in the top 50 – let alone the top 40 – at the regional meet.Medved broke the school record in the cross country 6k with her finish in 20:48.1 at the NCAA West Regional, while Gibson's time of 20:48.4 would have also broken the previous record.
 
Medved's strong cross country season came on the heels of a breakout 2018 outdoor track & field season in which she became the Vikings' first-ever Big Sky champion in the steeplechase. Medved also became the Vikings' first-ever NCAA West Prelims qualifier in the steeplechase, and broke the school record in the event twice – the last time coming with a finish in 10:21.56 at the Mt. SAC Relays.
 
Gibson attempted to join Medved at the NCAA West Prelims last season, but a heroic effort in the 10,000 meters at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships came up short. Gibson still placed fifth in the 10,000 meters in a personal-best 35:24.64 despite having to hold the lead for most of the race.