Complete Meet Notes (PDF)

THE STARTING BLOCK
Portland State head track & field coach David Hepburn has a simple message to his athletes ahead of the team's first meet of the season at the Vandal Open and Lauren McCluskey Multi this Friday and Saturday.
 
Chill. Stay calm.
 
"We're trying to keep them from getting too amped up and having some out-of-body experience. That's unnecessary. Go there, do your work, show the work that you've put in," Hepburn said.
 
"We'll see where our strength and weaknesses are. We didn't do well out of the blocks? Oh, we can put some focus there. We didn't finish the race well? We can start putting some focus there. Blocks were okay, finished pretty strong, but the middle of race was a little funky? We can work on some more acceleration work. This meet just kind of directs us into what our next phase of training will be and what we need to focus on."
 
The meet will mean the re-introduction of several athletes and event groups to the Vikings' track world. Field-event athletes and sprinters/hurdlers will make their debuts after a long fall of work in the weight room and on the track. Additionally, middle distance runners who may have run during the cross country season but not at their preferred distances get to run the events that better suit them as athletes.
 
Kristen O'Handley, now a junior, should lead the Vikings' field-event athletes and sprinters this weekend, as she competes in her first pentathlon of the season. O'Handley is coming off a breakout outdoor season in which she improved her heptathlon personal best by over 450 points. O'Handley broke the 5,000-point barrier for the first time in the heptathlon at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships, where she placed fifth as a sophomore. 
 
O'Handley set her personal best in the pentathlon at last season's Idaho opener, when she scored 3,529 points to move up to fifth all time at Portland State. Hepburn said this year's Idaho meet will serve more as a rust buster for O'Handley with the idea that bigger scores will come at some of the bigger meets later this season.
 
"Sometimes in the pentathlon, you just need to remember what it's like to compete for an entire day. She's going to go both days this weekend so that's going to help her figure out to compete two days in a row," Hepburn said of his and O'Handley's plan for the Idaho meet. "There's a whole bunch of things like that that we work on. When to eat, and things like that. We know it, but it's a really good refresher to get back into that compete-all-day mode. That's pretty much what this meet is about."
 
Hepburn and O'Handley may be taking a conservative approach this weekend, but Hepburn was bullish when talking about O'Handley's potential this season.
 
"With all the seniors who graduated within the conference after last year, she should be in the top three and fighting for a conference championship. I really think that's a possibility," Hepburn said of O'Handley. "All of a sudden she's gone from the new-on-the-scene freshman/sophomore who isn't quite there yet to, 'wait a minute, now I'm competing for a title.' She's come a long way. Her attitude towards the 800 is a ton better. She's excited for it, which she should be. It's something that she can actually do really well at because we've done the things necessary for her to do that as long as the mentality is there."
 
And a familiar face has been helping O'Handley at practice. Donté Robinson has taken on a mentorship role with O'Handley. He's well suited for it since he finished his career last season as a three-time Big Sky champion in the multi-events, but didn't win his first title until his redshirt junior season.
 
"It's been fun having Donté around, kind of taking her under his wing because he's gone through the same thing. New on the scene, then suddenly fighting for titles and then being expected to win titles. So she's kind of leaning on him a bit and asking him questions about that, too. It's been good for her," Hepburn said of the two working together.
 
O'Handley will be the only Viking competing Friday, as the pentathlon begins and ends that day. She'll then move on to the 60-meter hurdles and 200 meters Saturday, when the rest of the field-event athletes and sprinters/hurdlers make their season debuts.
 
The majority of athletes competing Saturday will do so in the distances, however. The Vikings have nine athletes currently entered in the men's and women's mile, and another 10 entered in the men's and women's 3,000 meters.
 
The Vikings also have three athletes entered in the men's 800 meters in Chase Lovercheck, Clinton Omondi and Will Payton. Those three will be itching to run at their preferred distance once again.
 
Lovercheck hasn't run an 800 in a Viking singlet since breaking out at the Big Sky Outdoor Championships last May. Lovercheck, who came into the Big Sky meet ranked 18th in the conference in the 800 meters, sneaked into the 800 final and then surprised the field by placing third in a personal-best 1:50.92.
 
Hepburn cautioned anyone from expecting a similar time from Lovercheck this weekend, but like O'Handley, Hepburn was bullish on Lovercheck's potential later this season.
 
"If you look at it, he could win it this year," Hepburn said of Lovercheck. "Everybody who finished ahead of him was a senior, and he finished third [at last year's Big Sky outdoor meet]. We'll see how he runs, though. This meet is sort of a tuner for him. He's running a 4x4 to get some more speed work in, and he'll probably have a little bit of a workout after the meet, too. We're using it more as a glorified speed workout day because he's got to be able to double. At big meets, there's going to be a prelim and a final that he'll have to run, so we're working on that."
 
Lovercheck should no longer be a surprise like he was at the end of last year's outdoor season. The middle-distance runner who could turn some heads for the Vikings this weekend, Hepburn says, could be Payton.
 
Payton enters his junior season with the Vikings having grown into being a middle-distance runner after starting his Viking career as a sprinter. That conversion has taken some time, but Hepburn says Payton has been hanging with Lovercheck in practice at times, and could be in line for a personal best if he can hang with Lovercheck again at this weekend's meet.
 
"It will be pretty fun to see if Will can hang on to Chase," Hepburn said in anticipation of this weekend's meet. "If they both run a 1:53, that's a four-second, five-second PR for Will. He's put in the work and he looks pretty good so it looks like he should be able to pull that off.
 
"That'd be pretty cool for a guy who was sort of reluctantly pulled into the distances. Turning him into a distance runner from a sprinter's background? That's a struggle. That's a lot of running. For a guy that's a sprinter? All of a sudden you're running 50 miles a week? Yeah, that took some time. But he's embraced it and he's doing really well."
 
Hepburn doesn't expect the Vikings will send too many surprises through the field this weekend, however. Again, the Vikings are supposed to be staying calm, and running within themselves at a race pace.
 
That said, you never know what you're going to see until the athletes get on the track.
 
"I'm not expecting some flash of brilliance out there, but you never know. Because we do have so many people who are fresh and green," Hepburn said. "They're going to get up there and they're going to be excited about the whole thing and if they get in the right heat and run smart, yeah, they could pop something that's surprising."
 
MEET INFO:
Jan. 10-11 – Vandal Open and Lauren McCluskey Multi – Moscow, Idaho (Kibbie Dome)
 
MEET SCHEDULE:
Friday, Jan. 10
Pentathlon
Start (PT)                    Events (PSU entries)
11 a.m.                        Women's Pentathlon 60-Meter Hurdles (O'Handley)
~12 p.m.                      Women's Pentathlon High Jump (O'Handley)
~2 p.m.                        Women's Pentathlon Shot Put (O'Handley)
~3:15 p.m.                   Women's Pentathlon Long Jump (O'Handley)
~4:25 p.m.                   Women's Pentathlon 800 Meters (O'Handley)
 
Saturday, Jan. 11
Field Events
Start (PT)                    Events (PSU entries)
After M-PV at 9:45      Men's Pole Vault (Masanga)
After M-WT                 Women's Shot Put (Mumford)
11 a.m.                        Women's Long Jump (Terry)
After W-LJ at 11          Men's Long Jump (Barrow)
After M-HJ at 12         Women's High Jump (Dunleavy, Elliott)
 
Running Events
Start (PT)                    Events (PSU entries)
11:10 a.m.                   Women's 60-Meter Hurdles – Prelims (Buckhaults, O'Handley)
11:25 a.m.                   Men's 60 Meters – Prelims (Barrow)
12 p.m.                        Women's 60 Meters – Prelims (Buckhaults, Smith, Terry)
12:40 p.m.                   Men's Mile (Solano, A., Tolander, Vasta, Witman)
1:20 p.m.                     Women's Mile (Brown, Eberspecher, Jones, Rodriguez, Wolf)
2:35 p.m.                     Women's 60-Meter Hurdles – Final
2:40 p.m.                     Men's 60-Meter Hurdles – Final
2:45 p.m.                     Men's 60 Meters – Final
2:50 p.m.                     Women's 60 Meters – Final
2:55 p.m.                     Men's 800 Meters (Lovercheck, Omondi, Payton)
3:30 p.m.                     Men's 200 Meters (Barrow)
4:05 p.m.                     Women's 200 Meters (O'Handley, Smith, Terry)
4:40 p.m.                     Men's 3,000 Meters (Frazeur, Grams, Hippe, Lingwall, Shedd, Solano, E.)
5:10 p.m.                     Women's 3,000 Meters (Jacques, Salazar, Storm, White)
5:40 p.m.                     Men's 4x400-Meter Relay (Portland State 'A' – Barrow, Lovercheck, Omondi, Payton)
 
UPCOMING
The Vikings head up to Seattle for the UW Indoor Preview next Saturday, Jan. 18.