LEVELLAND, Texas – Spencer Amerin tied for third in the men’s high jump on Thursday to close out the Region VI/Jayhawk West champion Hutchinson Community College men’s track and field team’s run at the 2012 NJCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships at South Plains College.
The Blue Dragon men scored in five events on Friday to finish the national championships in eighth place with 38.25 points. South Plains won the men’s team championship with 163 points.
Emily Yoder was the top HCC women’s player on Thursday, taking fifth in the women’s javelin. The Lady Dragons scored 14 points to tie for 14th place. South Plains won the women’s team title with 184.50 points.
Amerin tied with three others at a height of 6 feet, 11 inches, which is just one-half inch of his career best. A pair of high jumpers cleared 7 feet with Iowa Central’s James White winning the event at 7 feet, 3 inches.
Cody Howell tied for seventh in the high jump with a personal best 6 feet, 9 inches. Ten different high jumpers reached 6-9.
Sophomore Robert Whitfield completed his Blue Dragon career with a personal best in the men’s long jump. Whitfield finished seventh overall with a jump of 24 feet, 5 inches.
Lex Parsons cleared 14 feet, 10 3/4 inches to score two points in a seventh-place finish in the men’s pole vault. Dakota Becker finished 11th in the pole vault at 14-4 3/4.
Freshman Skylar Arneson was the other Blue Dragon scorer on Thursday. One day after taking third in the shot put, Arneson placed eighth in the men’s discus with a throw of 160 feet. Robert Dunn set a personal best with the 11th-best throw in Blue Dragon history at 157 feet, 4 inches to finish ninth. Brandon Koenigsman was 13th at 150 feet, 1 inch.
Yoder was the top Region VI athlete in the women’s javelin, finishing fifth with a distance of 110 feet, two inches. The winning throw was more than 141 feet.
Indoor national high jump champion Cassie Wiley didn’t fare so well in the outdoor championships, finishing 10th after clearing 5-5 on Thursday. Wiley has been battling injuries through most of the last month.
Sophomore Sarah Talbert led three Lady Dragons in the women’s discus with a 10th-place finish at 140-11. Emily Yoder was 13th at 125-11 and Ashley Lorence was 16th at 119-1.
Next year, the NJCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships return to Gowans Stadium.
(HCC Sports Information)
