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Sari-Bentzur In 10th After First Day Of NCAA Heptathlon Junior leads nine athletes; on school record-setting pace.
May 30, 2002
BATON ROUGE, La. - University of New Mexico junior Keren Sari-Bentzur got off to a solid start in the heptathlon in her first appearance NCAA Track and Field Championships on Wednesday afternoon at Bernie Moore Track Stadium on the campus of Louisiana State University. Sari-Bentzur tallied a score of 3,159 through the first four events to finish the opening day of the multi-event competition in 10th place. The Omer, Israel native averaged nearly 790 points per event on Wednesday, putting her on pace for a final score of 5,529. The UNM record in the heptathlon is 5,419 points by Darcy Ahner in 1990. Sari-Benzur, who suffered a painful ankle strain while training last week, notched her best score of the afternoon in the opening event, the 100-meter hurdles. Her time of 14.64 was .32 seconds off her season- best in the event, but still netted 890 points. Sari-Bentzur made a move up the standings in the second event of the day, clearing 5-07.00 (855 pts.) in the high jump, the fifth-best performance in the event. After recording her second-best shot put mark of the season (36-05.75 - 603 pts.), she finished the opening day with a time of 25.84 in the 200 meters, which was good for 811 points. Defending NCAA heptathlon champion Austra Skujyte of Kansas State leads after day one with a score of 3,582, 102 points better than the nearest competitor. Mountain West Conference champion Leslie Miller of San Diego State is in 15th (3,116 pts.), while Utah's Erianne Allen stands in 16th place with 3,091 points.
The heptathlon concludes on Thursday with the long jump, javelin, and
800 meters. Lobo freshman Kelli Myers will also make her championship
debut in the high jump at 5:30 p.m. (MST).
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