Engelking 3rd at National Championships

(5/23/2009) See more Photos     Full Results

Three Jumbos boarded a plane for Marietta, OH this past week as they headed west for the 2009 National Championships hosted by Marietta College. The pair of decathletes, Skip Pagel and Jared Engelking, was joined by junior Jesse Faller in the 5k for this years competition. With two decathletes in the meet, it felt as though the Jumbos were heading into the championships with far more than three competitors. It felt as though an army of athletes was suiting up.

After a good shakeout at the Marietta facilities on Wednesday, the decathletes were primed and ready to compete on Thursday. Faller would have to hold off until Saturday to don his uniform. The decathlon 100m would be the first event of the entire championship weekend and it would start off in grand fashion. Engelking and Pagel lined up in the same heat, flanking the #1 seed in the event.

Each got out of the blocks well and continued to more throughout the race. Easily the most impressive 100m race of each athletes career, Pagel clocked in at 11.38 seconds and Engelking in 11.48. It was a PR for Engelking and almost a 0.6 second improvement on his qualifier. Although not a PR for Pagel, this race lacked the +8 mps tailwind of his PR performance. Pagel moved up through the field over the final 40m of the race better than ever before.

Sadly for Pagel, that 100m performance would be the last of his decorated career. A hamstring injury in his first attempt of the long jump would take him out of the competition and relegate him to fan/coach for the weekend. With the torch passed to Engelking nine events too soon, Engelking took it and ran. He posted solid, but not stellar performances, in the LJ and SP alike as he continued to get his bearings on the competition.

After fouling his final and best SP of the competition, it appeared that a newfound fire was lit in the junior decathlete. He proceeded to post impressive PR performances in each of the next two events. His jump of 6-0.75 in the HJ and 50.59 in the 400m finished off his day 1 with a 176 point improvement from his qualifier. It was the 2nd largest improvement for any decathlete in the competition.

What hasn


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