Oregon freshman Ashlee Moore dominated the heptathlon in her second meet at Hayward Field as a Duck, winning six of the seven events en route to a victory at the Oregon Relays.
Her score of 5,457 points moved Moore into No. 7 all time at the University of Oregon for heptathlon total points.
She owes the victory, she said, to her attitude. “I didn’t let a good performance or a really bad performance get to me that much,” she said. “I just kind of blew it off and focused on what was next to come. I think the way I handled the multis, overall, was really well.”
Moore was the 2014 USATF Junior Champion in the heptathlon and took 13th in the IAAF World Juniors that were hosted at Hayward Field in the summer of 2014.
Only one other woman finished the event. Kara Hallock from Oregon State finished with a score of 5,087. Oregon’s Lauren Crockett withdrew from the heptathlon after the long jump.
“I think it hurt a little bit,” Moore said. “When you’ve got more girls to compete against, you’re not just chasing down one person or trying to stay ahead of one other person.”
Moore won the two-day event with ease.
In the 100-meter hurdles, Moore finished first with a time of 13.67. She took first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.00. Moore also took first in the jumping competitions; she recorded a distance of 19-7 for the long jump and a height of 5-7 for the high jump.
The throws are where Moore admits even she was surprised by her performance. In the javelin, she threw 131-4, and she threw 36-0 for the shot put.
“Shot put was huge for me today,” she said. “During indoors, I was struggling a lot with shot put. I was trying to, like, put everything together. But I think it came together.”
The 800-meter run, the final event, was the only one Moore didn’t win. She finished with a time of 2:38.69, 10 seconds behind Hallock.
The 19-7 jump that Moore hit in the long jump was a personal record for her, but it didn’t last very long. She competed in the long jump event later in the day and jumped 19-11. But she’s still not satisfied. She said her goal for the day was to jump 20 feet.
— by Nik Streng
