Senior Nicholas Armstrong won the decathlon and junior Phylicia Johnson finished second in the heptathlon to lead the Long Beach State track and field team at the Big West Conference Multi-Events Championships in Irvine on Saturday.
Armstrong, who was the conference runner-up last year, claimed the 2011 Big West title with 7,409 points after winning the 110-meter hurdles event with a time of 15.21 seconds. He also finished second in the discus at 143-09. The Long Beach native tied for fourth in the pole vault and finished fifth in the javelin and 1500-meter event.
Junior Mark Horist added a fifth-place performance in the decathlon, compiling a season-high 6,690 points.
Horist’s best finishes of the day came in the javelin where he took third (172-08) and in the pole vault where he tied for fourth (14-04.50).
Dillon Fox (6,282) and Justin Fox (5,728) were seventh and eighth, respectively. Dillon finished the day strong, winning the 1500-meter in 4 minutes, 39.81 seconds.
Johnson led a trio of 49er women in the heptathlon as she took home runner-up honors with a lifetime-best 5,116 points. Her point total moved her up two spots to No. 3 on the LBSU all-time charts.
Johnson had a big second day with a first-place performance in the long jump. She registered a lifetime-best 19-feet 8-3/4 inches, which is tops in the Big West this season and ranks seventh in school history. She also finished fifth in the javelin (106-02) and 10th in the 800-meter event (2:36.06).
Johnson now ranks 20th in the West Region in the heptathlon and 33rd in the long jump.
Junior Kristen Kiefer also improved on her lifetime best, accumulating 4,775 points to finish seventh overall and rank eighth in the 49ers’ history. She had a solid second day of competition, taking fifth in the long jump with a season-best 17-09 and placing sixth in the javelin (105-10) and 800-meter event (2:25.80).
Junior Sara Macey rounded out the group in 10th place with 4,494 points.
LBSU returns to UC Irvine’s Anteater Stadium next weekend when it competes in the main events of the Big West Championships, May 13-14.
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