May 17, 2013
STEVE CARPENTER, HUTCHINSON COMMUNITY COLLEGE
HUTCHINSON, Kan. – For two-third of the men’s 10,000 meters on Thursday night at the NJCAA Men’s Division I Track and Field Championships, Colby’s Juan Joel Pacheco Orazco and Peter Koskey were hooked up with a pack of 11 runners, all within about 8 meters of each other.
But at crunch time, the Colby duo took charge and swept the top two spots of the first track final of the three-day national championship at Hutchinson Community College’s Gowans Stadium and helped the Jayhawk Conference sweep the first two gold medals of these championships.
Hours before Pacheco Orazco and Koskey set a blistering pace over the final 1,000 meters, Hutchinson’s Skylar Arneson unloaded a school-record throw in the men’s hammer and claimed a national championship for the Blue Dragons, again leading a 1-2 Jayhawk Conference sweep.
Pacheco Owens pulled away from the pack over the final three laps and won the 10,000-meter national championship with a time of 31 minutes, 52.17 seconds.
Even though Pacheco Owens pulled away, he didn’t dominate the race over the final 1,000 meters. His teammate Koskey, Glendale’s Julian Flores and Iowa Central’s Abbabiya Simbassa all stayed within 9 second of the leader at the wire.
Colby, the Day 1 men’s leader with 18 points after 2 of 22 events, saw Koskey run a national runner-up time of 31:59.42. Flores was third in 31:59.90 and Simbassa was fourth in 32:00.50.
With his second throw of the second flight on Thursday, Hutchinson’s Arneson set the standard for the competition and a school-record with a hammer throw of 198 feet, 8 inches. Only one competitor approached Arneson’s mark. Johnson County’s Caniggia Raynor finished second with a throw of 196-1.
Arneson is the second Blue Dragon to win the national men’s hammer championship in the last three seasons. Arneson’s throw is the second-best at Gowans Stadium and the top throw by a junior college athlete.
Defending national Decathlon champion Pau Tonneson has a 134-point lead over South Plains’ Juan Vasquez at the mid-point of the competition.
Tonneson has 3,858 points, winning the long jump (23 feet, ½ inch), shot put (43-5 ¼), and the high jump (6-11). He finished second in the 100 meters (11.53) and was seventh in the 400 (52.44).
Vasquez had a solid first five events, coming from behind to win the 400 meters at the wire with a time of 50.27 seconds). Vasquez was second both the in the long jump (22-8 ½) and high jump (6-8 ¾), third in the 100 meters (11.23), 10th in the shot put (31-9 ½).
Day 2 will feature the completion of the Decathlon, finals in the triple jump, shot put, javelin, 4x800-meter relay and the 3,000-meter steeplechase as well as preliminaries in all other events.
A live videostream will be available on NJCAATV beginning at 11:55 a.m. CT.