BELLINGHAM, Wash. – After the opening day of the 2024 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Combined Event Championships at Civic Stadium, Central Washington’s Ellie DeGroot leads the heptathlon and Alaska Anchorage’s Anders Larsen leads the decathlon.
The combined event championship, which is hosted by Western Washington University, is part of the upcoming 2024 GNAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships which will take place May 10-11 in Ellensburg, Wash.
DeGroot, who won the GNAC Indoor Championships title in the pentathlon on Feb. 20, is atop the leaderboard with 2,933 points and three events remaining on Tuesday. Alaska Anchorage’s Vivien Liessfeld is in second place with 2,796 points and CWU star freshman Emy Ntekpere sits in third place with 2,724 points.
DeGroot won both the 100-meter hurdles (14.47 seconds) and the 200 meters (25.37 seconds) on Monday, which combined to give her 1,766 points. She also posted a second-place finish in the shot put with a toss of 33’ 1.25” (10.09 meters), while finishing fifth in the high jump at 4’ 11.5” (1.51 meters).
Liessfeld made a surge up the leaderboard with her final two events of the day, as she won the shot put at 35’ 1” (10.69 meters) and took second in the 200 meters at 26.11 seconds to give her 1,363 of her points on the day. Ntekpere meanwhile, who won the GNAC Indoor Championships title in the high jump, won that event on Monday as she cleared 5’ 7.75” (1.72 meters).
Seattle Pacific’s Hannah Chang sits 215 points behind DeGroot, after she totaled 2,718 on Monday. Chang was the runner-up in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.64 seconds, and she finished in the top-four among the field of 12 competitors in three of the four events on Monday.
Western Oregon’s Macy Clemens (2,637 points) and Amity Deters (2,594 points) are also in the upper half of the field sitting in fifth place and sixth place, respectively. WOU’s Sadie Wendring sits in 10th place with 2,093 points, and CWU’s Carley Huber is eighth with 2,383 points. The host Vikings have four competitors in the event, including Karma Walker (2,504 points, seventh), Nicole Avery (2,356 points, ninth), Cassandra Schulberg (1,990 points, 11th) and Tess King (1,380 points, 12th). Tuesday’s finale will unfold with the long jump, javelin and 800 meters.
On the men’s side, Larsen totaled 3,448 points across his five events on Monday. He finished in the top-three in every discipline, and capped his day by winning the 400 meters with a time of 50.61 seconds to grab 787 points. His most fruitful effort of the day came in the form of a second-place finish in the 100 meters, which earned him 799 points among a field of seven competitors.
CWU’s Drew Klein, the GNAC Indoor Champion in the heptathlon, sits just nine points behind Larsen after a similarly impressive opening-day total of 3,439 points. Klein won both the 100 meters (11.17 seconds) and the long jump (22’ 10”), and finished the day as the runner-up in the 400 meters (51.52 seconds).
Gabe Burchfield of Western Oregon drew on his success as the GNAC Indoor champion in the high jump on Monday, as he finished first in that event by clearing a bar of 6’ 0.5” (1.84 meters). Burchfield sits in third place after the Day 1 events with a total of 3,303 points. Teammate JJ Walker is close behind in fourth place with 3,237 points, and Caleb Ness is also representing WOU as he sits in seventh place with 2,884 points.
Andrew Boyd of Saint Martin’s picked up an event victory in the shot put, with a toss of 42’ 11” (13.08 meters). That earned him 672 of his 3,208 points, and he ended the day in fifth place. Also competing in the decathlon is Montana State Billings’ Ryan Fenley, who is in sixth place with a point total of 3,102.
The men’s competitors will progress through the 110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500 meters to wrap up the decathlon on Tuesday. Live results are available online here.
