Matador Women Advance to Second Place

Senior Cherice Ellison of Cal State Northridge won the long jump and freshman teammate Christina Tolson placed second in the shotput and hammer throw in the Big Sky Conference women’s track and field championships at Eastern Washington University on Friday.

The Matadors are in second place with 44 points heading into the final day of the four-day meet.

Northern Arizona leads with 68 points and Idaho State is third with 31.

Ellison leaped a career-best of 19 feet 7 inches in the long jump to move to eighth on the all-time Northridge performer list.

Tolson put the shot a career-best of 50-5 1/4 and also threw the hammer 168-7. Senior Anna Soderberg of Northern Arizona won both weight events with marks of 51-3 and 179-0.

Tolson’s mark in the shotput added two feet to her previous best and move her to third on the all-time Matador list.

With the top six finishers in each event scoring points on a 10-8-6-4-2-1 basis, Northridge accounted for 14 points in the shotput.

Freshman Cheree Hicks placed fourth at 47-9 and senior Scia Maumausolo was fifth at 47-1 3/4.

Northridge scored 10 points in the pole vault when freshman Jennifer Sargent placed second at 10-6 and sophomore Monica Tobin finished fifth at 9-0 1/4.

Junior Jamie Whitmore scored Northridge’s final two points of the day when she placed fifth in the 10,000 in 37:12.88.

Ellison also had the second-fastest qualifying time in the 100 at 12.25 seconds and the fifth-fastest time in the 200 at 25.56.

She is expected to compete in the 100, 200, triple jump and 400 relay today and might also run a leg on the Matadors’ 1,600 relay.

The Northridge men were in eighth place with two points after Friday’s competition, but they are expected to score plenty of points today.

Junior Joe Criner was the leading qualifier in the 100 with a time of 10.70 and in the 200 at 21.45, and senior Marquis Jones posted the fastest qualifying time of 14.19 in the 110 high hurdles.

Jones qualified fifth in the 400 intermediate hurdles at 53.51 while Jeff Nasternak was third in the 800 at 1:52.58 and teammate Mike Balderas was fifth at 1:52.97.

Freshman Jason Hammond accounted for the Matadors’ only points when he placed fifth in the discus at 159-6.

State Junior College championships--Eleazar Hernandez of Moorpark came up short in his bid to win a second consecutive title in the men’s 10,000.

Hernandez ran a career-best of 30:42.46 to win the Southern California title May 3, but was fourth in 32:08.10 on Saturday after being hampered by chest cramps.