GULF SHORES, Ala. –
Zeb Hoffman and
Irene Moore will represent The Evergreen State College at the NAIA Track & Field Championships, to be held Thursday through Saturday at Mickey Miller Blackwell Stadium.
Hoffman, a junior from Olympia, enters Thursday's hammer throw competition with the best qualifying mark of 64.84 meters (212-9). That performance came at the Cascade Collegiate Conference championship meet and surpassed his own school record by 16 feet.
Hoffman's top competition is expected to come from Concordia (Nebraska) senior Joshua Slechta, who is ranked second with a throw of 64.27 meters (210-10). The men's hammer throw is slated to start at 1 p.m. (Central time) on Thursday.
Moore competes in the two-day, seven-event heptathlon on Thursday and Friday, and is entered in the 400-meter hurdles, with a preliminary on Thursday and final on Saturday.
The senior from Bremerton, who has established six school records this season, enters the heptathlon with the 10th-best score at 4,397 points. She set that school record at the Cascade Collegiate Conference multi-event championships.
Moore begins her quest for All-America status in the heptathlon at 10:30 a.m. (Central time) Thursday with the 100-meter hurdles. The other three events on Thursday are the high jump, shot put and 200-meter dash.
Somewhere near or at the end of Thursday's heptathlon, Moore will run her 400 hurdles preliminary heat at 4 p.m. Her school-record time of 1:02.38, which came at the conference championships, ranks her 11th coming into the national meet.
The women's heptathlon resumes at 10:30 a.m. Friday with competition in the long jump, javelin and 800-meter run.
Should Moore qualify for the 400 hurdles final, she will run that race at 4:10 p.m. on Saturday.
The most-decorated and arguably the greatest athlete in Evergreen track & field history,
Anthony Johnson, qualified in the men's high jump but will not compete because of an injured shoulder. Johnson is a two-time national outdoor meet runner-up in his specialty, and three times he has earned All-America honors at the national indoor meet, including consecutive second-place finishes.
