Track and field
hosts
COUGAR OPEN
BY JAC OB THOMPSON
SPORTS EDITOR @SPORTSEDTHOMPS •
Clackamas Community College’s track and field program
hosted the Cougar Open at Oregon City High School’s
Pioneer Stadium Saturday, April 20. The meet was the
eighth m eet the Cougars have competed in this season.
Overall Clackamas has qualified 12 athletes in 16 events
for the NWAC Championships.
The most prolific athlete on the m en’ s or wom en’ s
team s m ight h e sophom ore J.J. W alker. W alker has
qualified for the NWAC championships in the high jump,
pole vault, javelin and the decathlon. Walker had a great
season last year and perhaps a better one this season.
“ I’ m feeling pretty good honestly,” Walker said. “ I’m
hitting m y PRs and keep working hard.”
Walker credits a unique regimen of hard training and
film studying to h is success in multiple events.
“ If I were to do javelin, hurdles and longjump one day
w hen I go home I watch a video on pole vault, shot put
and high jum p,” Walker said. “ I get that visualization
of what I’ m going to be doing next time I practice those
events the next day. All these techniques take so much
patience because you’re not going to learn them that
fast.”
On the w om en’ s side Essence Foster has stood out
as an outstanding athlete as she has qualified in the
400-meter hurdle, the longjum p and the heptathlon.
Foster also won the 400m hurdles at Saturday’s meet
w ith a time of 1:05.65, a mere 0:00.05 ahead of Haley
White from Eastern Oregon.
Foster also ran on Clackamas’ 4x100 meter relay team
with Kiara Johnson Cecilia Munoz and Grace Boyle. The
team finished third and posted a qualifying tim e of
49.74 seconds.
The wom en’s jumpers had a great day at the Cougars
open as Jillian Sharp tied for fourth place in the
w om en’ s high jump, reaching a qualifying height of
1.52 meters. Alyssa Smith finished first in the pole vault
clearing 3.35m which also qualified her for the NWAC
championship.
Mercedes Pesina led the way for Clackamas’ women
throwers as she finished third in the javelin with a toss
of 37.85 meters.
“ This Weekend w as really good,” Pesina said. “ I
got another big PR, I had already qualified for NWAC
cham pionships, but to keep going up is a really big
accom plishm ent.”
The m en’ s side of the Cougars program saw three
athletes post qualifying marks in four events at the
Cougar Open with freshman Anthony Garcia’s 1.92 meter.
high jump, Walker’s 4.42 meter pole vault and his 6.50
meter longjum p and BriggsTatom 44.18 meters in the
hammer throw.
“ It was a good meet for most o f us,” Tatom said. “ It
felt good to qualify and get some stress o ff.”
Freshman Jason Miller didn’t post a qualifying time
in the 200 meter but finished in third place in a closely
contested race. Miller,only finished 0.03 seconds ahead
of the fourth place runner.
Freshman Tre Hamilton finished fourth in the 800
meter race w ith a time of 1:58.14 and finished sixth in
the 1,500 meter with a time of 4:07.38
“ Ône of the highlights of the meet was Tre Hamilton
in our distance events,” Head Coach Keoni Mitchell said.
“ [Hamilton] set a one second lifetime [personal record]
in the 800 meter, race ând an eight second PR in the
1,500 meter and then a great anchor leg in the 4 by 4. ”
T hroughout the sea so n Clackam as has already
captured great successes and have four more meets to
capture more qualifying times, heights and distances
to get as many athletes in the NWÀC championships.
The Cougars w ill travel to Corvallis this weekend to
participate in the OSU High Performance meet on April
26 and 27.
The Cougar Open took place at Pioneer Stadium on April 20. It was the eighth year Clackamas had hosted the event.
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