by JOEL CARLSON
Montana senior Lindsey Hall won the heptathlon Friday at the Montana State Invitational at Bozeman with a score that broke her own school record by 64 points and places her No. 9 on the national performance list.
Hall finished with 5,424 points to break her record of 5,360, set at the 2011 Big Sky championships at Sacramento, Calif. Her total is the ninth-best score in Big Sky Conference history.
“I can’t emphasize enough that my mindset coming into this heptathlon was that this is just practice,” Hall said. “I didn’t have any sort of goal in my head that I was going to go out and beat my previous score. I think that goes to show what I need to act like.”
Hall was on record pace after scoring 3,312 points in Thursday’s four events. That put her in a position — should she have a moment of weakness and allow herself to think about it — to potentially post a two-day score that would challenge for one of the 24 spots to nationals in June at Eugene, Ore.
Hall’s previous record was good enough to send her to the 2011 NCAA championships, her only career trip to nationals.
“To see my score through day one, I knew it was a definite possibility, and that was exciting,” Hall said. “I started to get a little too hyped this morning thinking, What about this? What am I going to do if this happens? I just had to step back and relax.”
With just three attempts in each event, Hall shook off the pressure and came through in the long jump, Friday’s opening event.
After a jump in the 17s, Hall went 18-4 on her second attempt. With some freedom from an already solid mark, Hall went 18-7.25 on her third attempt, and that set up the rest of her day.
“From there I could see what was taking shape and what was going to happen,” she said.
Hall threw a solid 135-4 in the javelin, then closed with a 2:31.73 in the 800 meters to finish 533 points ahead of Montana State’s Carley McCutchen, who totaled 4,891 to finish second. And it’s still early April.
“It’s kind of a fresh feeling for me to have the type of mark I’m capable of this early,” Hall said. “This gives me a new baseline, and raising that baseline is a big part of gaining confidence in the heptathlon.”
Hall’s next heptathlon will be at Azusa Pacific in mid-April as part of the Mt. SAC Relays.
Freshmen Nicole Stroot (3,908 points), Lakyn Connors (3,685) and Maggie Hering (3,616) finished fourth, sixth and eighth Friday. Junior Shayle Dezellem competed through six events but did not start the 800 meters.
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