Saturday, June 2, 2007

Beach Wins Decathlon

By Glen Rosales
For the Journal

    It took career bests in the final three events Friday for New Mexico's Curtis Beach to earn a come-from-behind victory in the Great Southwest Track and Field Classic's decathlon.
    Beach, who just finished his sophomore season at Albuquerque Academy, led a strong effort for the home state as Cibola senior-to-be Daniel Gooris also nabbed a spot on the medal stand by finishing third for the second straight season.
    "It shows that even though we're little old New Mexico, we can still compete with the big guys from Texas and California," Gooris said.
    Actually, it was a national invitee who put on a small burst at the finish of the 1,500-meter run, the day's final event, that kept New Mexico from sweeping the top two spots.
    Oregon's Chase Dalton, who was the leader by 194 points entering the last event, held off Gooris by 102 points, which equates to just more than 20 seconds.
    "We would have liked to have gone 1-2," Gooris said. "But that guy from Oregon was really good."
    But it was Beach who showed he was a strong finisher, coming up with 7,185 points, with Dalton at 6,988 and Gooris at 6,886.
    Beach knew he needed to beat Dalton by more than 30 seconds in the 1,500, which could have been a challenging task. But he was buoyed by the confidence that comes with going 14 feet, 31/4 inches in the pole vault, breaking his personal best by a foot.
    Then he tossed the javelin 121-6, exceeding his previous best by almost 10 feet.
    And to cap the evening, he burned through the 1,500 in a time of 4 minutes, 14.08 seconds.
    "I've never been so tired going into the 1,500," Beach said. "The competition from these guys was so great. I knew I had to run a great 1,500."
    In reality, he said, he thought he might have been able to go a little bit faster, but he ran a relatively slow first lap. It certainly didn't show on the course. After quickly opening up a big lead, he then extended it during the remaining three laps.
    Gooris was the only one within shouting distance of Beach, finishing second in the event at 4:45.86. The event was a strong one for New Mexico, with Estancia's Brian Wilson taking fourth at 4:59.80.
    Another strong event was the pole vault with Gooris trumping Beach's effort by setting a personal best and a decathlon-meet record by going 16-23/4.
    New Mexico's female contingent didn't fare as well in the heptathlon, with Aztec's Patricia Malouff claiming the top spot among the state's competitor's, finishing ninth with 3,839 points. Las Cruces' Zoe Meade finished 10th.
    The event was won by Jessica Flax, a senior-to-be out of Pearland, Texas.
    She moved up from third place on the strength of her 800 run, taking second in 2:29.27.
    "I was hurting the last 300 meters," she said of the run. "But we do sets of 200 at the end of our practice and I looked at it like that, like it was the eighth 200. I applied that to here and I think it helped."
    Today
    Great Southwest Track and Field Classic: UNM Track and Soccer Complex Times: Field events begin at 11 a.m.; track events begin at 3 p.m.
 

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