Before Thursday and Friday’s decathlon, Craig Saalfeld sat down with Emporia State track coach David Harris to set up some goals for each event.
The coach will probably expect a little more from Saalfeld the next time around.
“All the numbers he had down on paper before the meet, I pretty much beat,” Saalfeld said, “so I was happy with that.”
The combined success in individual events led to an impressive debut in the decathlon from Saalfeld, who ended up sixth out of 19 competitors at the ESU Open Multis on Friday.
The junior, who had 6,237 points, was just 63 points away from posting a provisional-qualifying total.
“I kind of had an expectation later down the road that I’d provisional for sure, but definitely not my first meet,” Saalfeld said. “There’s a lot of room for improvement. I just need to practice more, and a lot of it just comes down to repetition.”
On Friday, two of Saalfeld’s best outings came in the 1,500-meter run and pole vault.
Harris had set a goal of 4:50 in the 1,500, and Saalfeld easily beat that, finishing with a 4:41.38 to take second.
“It was my first one ever, so I don’t know if I could get better,” Saalfeld said. “I felt pretty good during it.”
Saalfeld’s pole vault of 11 feet, 1 inch also was more than a foot higher than Harris was hoping for. Saalfeld finished 12th in that event.
The junior added a fourth-place showing in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.72 seconds.
On the women’s side, Ryan Green reached her goal of making it into the top 10, finishing 10th in the heptathlon with 4,089 points.
“That’s my first time over 4,000. That’s a big personal record,” Green said. “I’m happy about that. Hopefully in conference I can beat that P.R.”
Green’s best event was the long jump, where she had a personal-best jump of 17 feet, 6 3/4 inches to take second.
“I just had to pay attention to the wind so I wouldn’t scratch,” Green said. “I was just getting out, reaching and competing.”
Both Saalfeld and Green were able to score team points for Sunday’s D-II Challenge.
Saalfeld earned three points on the men’s side, while Green picked up two points for the ESU women.
The D-II Challenge starts at noon Sunday at Welch Stadium.
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