Not part of the plan: Babb drops to 2nd in last event of decathlon
By Jesse Newell
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
With a 59-point lead heading into the final event, Emporia State’s Cameron Babb was told over and over again what he needed to do to take his second consecutive MIAA decathlon championship.
And that was to stay right on the backside of second-place Alan Yoder of Fort Hays State.
“Everyone was telling me, ‘Stick within 6 seconds of Yoder,’” Babb said, “so I was right on his hip the whole race.”
It turned out to not be enough.
While Babb was sticking with Yoder — he finished just 58 hundredths of a second behind him — Northwest Missouri State’s Courtland Ingram took it upon himself to win the 1,500-meter race and the decathlon.
Ingram finished with a time of 4:40.14, jumping up 193 points on Babb to take the MIAA title. His 6,727 points were 53 more than Babb’s 6,674.
“All of a sudden with about a lap and a half to go, they said, ‘You’d better catch Courtland. He might pass both of you,’” Babb said. “By then it was too late really to catch back up to him. They told me to stick with Yoder, so I did, and I ended up beating him. The other guy just leap-frogged us both.”
Babb still finished with a personal record in the decathlon, posting the 10th best mark in the nation this year. Ingram, Babb and Yoder all provisionally qualified for Nationals with their point totals.
“I do believe (Cameron) competed hard,” ESU track and field coach Dave Harris said. “I believe he gave everything he had, and Courtland went out and won this championship.”
Though he was passed in the final event, Babb was most disappointed with his performance in the javelin.
The senior had hopes of throwing 62 meters but ended up with a best toss of 54.09 meters (177 feet, 5 inches). He still won the event but missed out on some important points that a longer throw would have given him.
“If I threw what I was hoping to, I probably would have came out on top,” Babb said, “but you can’t always get what you’re hoping for.”
Babb set personal records in the long jump (23 feet, 5.5 inches) and pole vault (11 feet, 11.25 inches).
He still shrugged off his vault performance.
“That’s not saying a whole lot,” Babb said with a laugh. “I’m not the greatest vaulter.”
On the women’s side, ESU’s Aubrey Folk and Ryan Green both just missed out on scoring team points in the conference meet, finishing ninth and 10th, respectively.
Folk scored 4,064 points, while Green had 3,922. Both were personal records.
“I feel like they competed very hard,” Harris said.
As for Babb, he will compete in the long jump and javelin this weekend at the conference meet before attempting to improve on last year’s ninth-place finish in the decathlon at nationals.
He still couldn’t help but be disappointed that sticking to the plan didn’t earn him a conference championship.
“(Coach Harris) came over before the race and asked if I knew what I had to do, and I said, ‘Yeah, gotta stay within 6 seconds.’ He said, ‘That’s right. Go do it,’” Babb said. “I did it, and, well, what are you going to do now?”