SAN MARCOS, Calif. – During the winter indoor season, Sophie Mock needed just two meets to go from 15-plus feet in the long jump to 16-plus.
 
Now that it's spring and the Seattle Pacific freshman is competing outdoors, she needed just two meets to go from 16-plus to 17-plus.
 
Mock got there on Friday afternoon, leaping 17 feet, 8¾ inches on her very first attempt at the Mangrum Invitational.
 
 

"I've been struggling to get on the board, and I was able to get on the board today," Mock said. "I could tell it was going to be a good jumping day."
 
When she landed in the sand at Mangrum Track & Field on the Cal State San Marcos campus, Mock wasn't thinking that she had gone that far.
 
"I was actually surprised when Coach told me what my mark was," said Mock, who won the first of the two flights. "It didn't feel like that big of a jump, but turned out that it was."
 
That personal-best distance ultimately gave her a fifth-place finish among the 20 competitors. She came close to 17 feet again on her fifth of six attempts, landing at 16-10½.
 
"I just feel a lot better," Mock said. "I've been waiting to kind of reach my goals that I set for myself this season. I feel like I've kind of gotten a slow start and I'm just starting to reach them, so that's good."
 
The long jump was an impressive personal-best, but it wasn't her only one. She went 16.86 in the 100-meter hurdles, dropping nearly a full second off the 17.85 she ran at the PLU Open last Saturday.
 
That PLU meet in Tacoma, at which she long jumped 16-4¼  was Mock's college outdoor debut. This past winter, she had a best of 16-7¼ at the UW Indoor Preview on Jan. 13.
 
Her effort on Friday gave her the Great Northwest Athletic Conference lead, with results from other meets still to come in and more action coming up on Saturday.
 
A native of Grants Pass, Oregon, Mock had a high school best of 17-3 as a junior in 2022. She also was a sprinter, a hurdler, and a regular on the 4x100 relay for Grants Pass High School.
 
In addition to her long jump and hurdles on Friday, Mock cleared 4-9¾ in the high jump. She went 4-9½ indoors.
 
 

NJERI JOINS NCAA LIST
SPU senior David Njeri added his name to the NCAA Division II provisional qualifying list in the men's triple jump with a leap of 48 feet, 6 inches, to win that event. The distance beat his previous season best of 47-11 ¾ at last Saturday's PLU Open. As of Friday evening, that ranks No. 6 on the national list.
 
Njeri also tied his season best of 22-9¾ to take second place in the long jump. That mark matches what he did a week ago at PLU.
 
AND THAT'S NOT ALL
-- Senior Charisma Smith set two personal bests, going 13.14 in the 100-meter dash (previous best 13.36 from 2021) and 26.53 in the 200 (previous best 26.89, also from 2021).
 

-- Freshman Paige Kessler set a career best of 5 feet, 1¾ inches to take second in the high jump. Her mark actually tied winner Esmeray Demibas of Orange Coast College, but Demibas got the higher place on the fewer-misses tiebreaker. Kessler went 4-9 ¾ in her college outdoor debut last week at PLU. Her overall high had been indoors with a mark of 5-1¼ at the Spokane Invitational in December.
 

-- The same thing happened to Emily Thomason in the pole vault. She got over the bar at 12 feet, 2½ inches and wound up in second place. Lilly McGraw of host Cal State San Marcos also went that high, but had fewer misses. It was Thomason's initial placement of the outdoor season, as she no-heighted at the Ed Boitano Invitational and at PLU. Teammate Lizzy Daugherty was fourth at 11-8½.

 

-- SPU's four steeplechasers got their first race of the year, and senor Brennan LeBlanc picked up right where he left off – and more. He was 15th across the finish line in 9 minutes, 40.88 seconds. That beat his previous PB of 9:47.72 from last year's GNAC Championships. At last year's Mangrum, running the 3000-meter endurance test for just the second time, LeBlanc clocked 10;04.68. That was 24 seconds behind what he did on Friday.
-- Freshman Silas Demmert ran his first steeple, stopping the watch in 10:25.19. Sophomore Maya Ewing was eighth in the women's race in 11:23.39; Katelyn Flolo was 33rd in 12:50.58.
-- Senior Kainoa Lee was third in the men's pole vault at 13-10.
-- Freshman Jonathan Lieb ran his college-best time in the men's 800 meters, finishing in 2:00.43.
-- Sophomore Hannah Chang had a much speedier time of it in the women's 100-meter hurdles, clocking 14.79 for fourth place. She was just eight-hundredths of a second behind winner Liv Heite. But those two are likely to meet again, as Heite hails from Alaska Anchorage. Chang clocked 15.06 at PLU.
-- Chang also set a personal best in the long jump at 16 feet, 3 1/4 inches. That tied her for 10th.
-- Sophomore Matise Mulch shaved 13 seconds off her season best in the women's 5000 meters. She came across in 18:22.53. She went 18:35.58 last week.
-- Sophomores Isaac Venable and Gabe Endresen PB'd in the men's 5000, Venable finished in 15:35.11. That's a six-second drop from his previous best of 15:41.24 at PLU. Endresen was done in 15:46.16. His previous best was 16:51.04 in April 2022.
 
UP NEXT
The Falcons head south to San Diego on Saturday for competition at two venues. Most of the team will be in the PLNU Invitational at Point Loma Nazarene. Pole vaulters Lizzy Daugherty and Emily Thomason and jumper David Njeri will head to the Aztec Invitational at San Diego State.
 
 
NCAA WOMEN'S TRACK & FIELD
Mangrum Invitational
Friday, March 22, 2024
Mangrum Track & Field / San Marcos, Calif.
 
Team scores – Not kept.
 
SPU EVENTS ONLY
100 – 1, Juvonna Cornette (Acad. Art) 11.81.  SPU – 25, Aniya Green 12.80; 36, Charisma Smith 13.14.
200 –  1, Ayana Fields (CP Pomona) 23.45.  SPU – 30, Aniya Green 26.09; 40, Charisma Smith 26.53.
400 – 1, Maliyah Medley (Azusa) 55.49.  SPU – 10, Johanna Brown 58.87.
5000 – 1, Carly Schuerger (CS San Marcos) 17:45.78.  SPU – 12, Matise Mulch 18:22.53.
100 hurdles – 1, Liv Heite (UAA) 14.71.  SPU – 4, Hannah Chang 14.79; 27, Sophie Mock 16.86.
3000 steeplechase – 1, Audrey Maclean (Middlebury) 10:50.74.  SPU – 8, Maya Ewing 11:23.39; 33,.Katelyn Flolo 12:50.58.
High jump – 1, Esmeray Demirbas (Orange Coast) 5-1¾ / 1.57m.  SPU – 2, Paige Kessler 5-1¾ / 1.57m (Demirbas gets higher place on fewer-misses tiebreaker); 6, Sophie Mock 4-9¾ / 1.47m.
Pole vault – 1, Lilly McGraw (CS San Marcos) 12-2½ / 3.72m.  SPU – 2, Emily Thomason 12-2½ / 3.72m (McGraw gets higher place on fewer-misses tiebreaker); 4, Lizzy Daugherty 11-8½ / 3.57m.
Long jump – 1, Devin Yarbrough (San Marcos) 18-8¾ / 5.71m.  SPU – 5, Sophie Mock 17-8¾ / 5.40; T10, Hannah Chang 16 3 1/4 / 4.96m.
 
 
NCAA MEN'S TRACK & FIELD
Mangrum Invitational
Friday, March 22, 2024
Mangrum Track & Field / San Marcos, Calif.
 
Team scores – Not kept.
 
SPU EVENTS ONLY
400 – 1, Omodiagbe Oboh (Acad. Art) 47.84.  SPU – 35, Evan Carpenter 52.30.
800 –  1, Jonathan Pfieffer (Cal State Fullerton) 1:50.66.  SPU – 27, Jonathan Lieb 2:00.43.
1500 – 1, Juan Diego Castro (Azusa) 3:40.93.  SPU – 71, Jonathan Lieb 4:17.36; 85, Ben Sheirbon 4:25.89.
5000 – 1, Jayden Holdsworth (Salt Lake) 14:31.66.  SPU – 26, Isaac Venable 15:35.11; 39, Nathaniel Gale 15:46.16; 50, Gabe Endresen 16:00.52
3000 steeplechase – 1, Ernesto Ruiz (Riverside) 9:05.99.  SPU – 15, Brennan LeBlanc 9:40.88; 27, Silas Demmert 10:25.19.
Pole vault – 1, Jaeden Correa (CP Pomona) 15-1¾ / 4.62m.  SPU – 3, Kainoa Lee 13-10 / 4.22m.
Long jump – 1, Yacouba Gnacko (Acad. Art) 23-3½ / 7.10m.  SPU – 2, David Njeri 22-9¾ / 6.95m.
Triple jump – 1, David Njeri 48-6 / 14.78#.  No other SPU.


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