Petsch finishes in fourth place

Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming junior Jay Petsch competes in the javelin for the decathlon on Thursday.

Decathlon final results

MWC team scores

By Bobby Abplanalp
Special to Wyoming Sports.org

The highs and lows of the decathlon hit Cowboy junior Jay Petsch on Thursday like the Wyoming wind.

After leading the decathlon after the first five events, Petsch slipped to a final fourth-place finish in the Mountain West Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships at the Louis S. Madrid Sports Complex.

Petsch finished the decathlon with 6,453 points.

“Today I thought was a failure,” Petsch said. “I just gave too many points away and I didn’t come close to any of my PRs (personal records) in anything, which is really disappointing.”

Skylar Morgan of Air Force won the event with 6,750 points, followed by teammate Noah Palicia (6,642), Brett Birkeland of Brigham Young (6,456), Petsch (6,453), Meelis Kosk of Brigham Young (6,189) and Brian Wilson of New Mexico (6,186).

On the day, Petsch finished third in the 110-meter hurdles in 15.76 seconds, fifth in the discus throw at 104-feet, 11 inches, third in the pole vault at 13-3 1/2, fifth in the javelin throw at 135-4 and last in the 1,500-meter run in 5:37.55.

“I think today went according to plan up until the very last event,” UW assistant coach Quincy Howe said. “We were way short on the last event. He (Petsch) fell a couple places and we projected him to be second place, so that was a little disappointing. But his total was about 300 more points than what he did last year, so he did better.”

“I’m not a distance runner,” Petsch said. “I struggled through that one (1,500-meter). I didn’t have anything left; I tried, but I just couldn’t.”

Petsch will also compete in the open long jump on Friday and the 4x400-meter relay on Saturday.

Petsch is looking forward to the 4x400-meter relay.

“I just like that whole team aspect of it. I think it’s really fun,” he said.

The weather was much like in day one with the sun shining and the blowing, although not as cool as on Wednesday.

“The pole vault was difficult with the wind,” Petsch said. “I heard it from everybody today. It made you run all weird and you didn’t know where to put the standards at, and it just threw everything off, which was a big problem with everybody in the pole vault today overall.”