LEVELLAND, Texas – Freshman Page Stuhlsatz completed a memorable freshman year, while teammate Skylar Arneson continued the Hutchinson Community College men’s track and field team’s strong showing in the field events on Wednesday at the 2012 NJCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships at South Plains College.

Stuhlsatz added a second All-America designation this season in becoming the national runner-up in the women’s pole vault on Wednesday. Arneson earned the Blue Dragon men’s second top-three finish at nationals in as many days with a national runner-up showing in the men’s shot put on Wednesday.

Entering Thursday’s final day of competition, Hutchinson’s men are third in the team standings with 27 points. Coffeyville leads the team race with 44 points and Central Arizona is second with 40. The Lady Dragons are tied for ninth place with Butler and Macomb with 10 points.

In her last several events Stuhlsatz flirted with the 12-foot plateau and had several close calls. On Wednesday, the Garden Plain native not only reached the 12-foot mark, but broke the school record by clearing 12 feet, 1 1/2 inches.

Only one vaulter topped Stuhlsatz in the women’s pole vault on Wednesday, the same vaulter who defeated her at the NJCAA indoor national championships, Vincennes University’s Natalia Bartnovskaya, who defended her national championship that she first won last year at Gowans Stadium by clearing 13-9 3/4

Hutchinson’s other national second-place finish came from Arneson, who made up for a rough day on Tuesday when he fouled all three times in the hammer throw. On Wednesday, Arneson uncorked the fourth-best shot put in team history with a personal best 53 feet, 4 1/2 inches. Glendale Kyle Little won the men’s shot put with a distance of 54-6 1/2.

Evan Moore also scored in the shot put for the Blue Dragons, finishing seventh at 51-1 1/2.

The Blue Dragons had one more top-three finish on Day 2 of the championships when the men’s 4x800-meter relay finished third with a time of 7 minutes, 47.14 seconds. That time posted by Skylar Gutierrez, Isaac Williams, Brandon Massey and Julio Martinez ran the fifth-best time in program history.

One school record fell on Wednesday, but the HCC men’s 4x100 relay team ran a time of 40.82 seconds. But for the relay team of Rashawn Baker, Donnie Woods, Juwan Cubit and Cordarrelle Patterson, the record was a bit hollow as the Blue Dragons finished ninth in the preliminaries and just out of Thursday’s finals.

Other Blue Dragon performances on Wednesday:

+ John Siale took sixth in the men’s javelin with a throw of 168-6. Blake Withrow was ninth at 147-6.

+ Sophomore Autumn Iverson placed seventh in the women’s shot put with a distance of 44-1 1/4.

+ Sophomore Robert Whitfield placed seventh in the triple jump with a leap of 48 feet, ¾-inch.

+ Sprinter Cordarrelle Patterson made the 100-meter finals and missed in the 200. Patterson posted the eighth-best qualifying time on Wednesday in the 100 with a time of 10.62 seconds. His 200-meter time was 21.87 seconds, which was 18th.

+ Juwan Cubit didn’t qualify for the 200-meter finals with a 31st-place time of 27.13 seconds.

+ Sophomore Julio Martinez missed qualifying for the finals in the 800 meters after posting a time of 2:06.53, which was 28th.

+ Freshman Bre Bennette was 16th in the women’s triple jump after going 34-9 ½.

+ Withrow finished ninth in the Decathlon with a total of 5,567 points. Karson Becker was 10th with 5,563 points.

The 2012 NJCAA championships conclude on Thursday.

(HCC Sports Information)