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Senior Quintin Porterfield led a 5-7-8 finish in the decathlon for the Eastern Washington University track and field team as the multi events competitions wrapped up Thursday (May 13) at the Big Sky Conference Track and Field Championships in Ogden, Utah.
 
Porterfield had a fast start to the final day, but fell from second to fifth in the final standings. After scoring 3,694 in the first five events on Wednesday, he scored 2,448 on the final day and finished with a personal best 6,142 points – a single point out of fourth place.
 
He came 495 points from becoming Eastern's first BSC All-Conference performer in that event in 20 years, and only the fourth in EWU's 34-year history in the Big Sky Conference. Porterfield fell 36 points short of earning a spot on EWU's top 10 all-time list.
 
Eastern scored seven team points with the 5-7-8 finish as junior Parker Wubbena came on strong to finish with a personal best of 5,761 points and claim seventh, with freshman Chris Homen right behind in eighth with a career-high 5,755 points. Sophomore Elijah Conley was the fourth Eagle in the competition and placed 11th with 5,512 points.
 
In the women's heptathlon, sophomore Hayden McAuliff finished 11th with a personal best of 4,205 points, moving up two places from the first day. Sophomore Madelyn Knight was in eighth place after the first day with 2,755 points, but dropped out of the competition and did not compete on Thursday.
 
Porterfield scored 792 points with a career-best time of 15.48 in the 110-meter high hurdles to start the day with a second-place finish in that event. He scored only 317 points in the discus and 335 in the pole vault, but rebounded to score 465 points in the javelin with a career-best 136-5 effort and 539 in the 1500 with a time of 5:03.64.
 
"Quintin had a great decathlon with the exception of two events -- discus and pole vault," said Eastern assistant and multi-events coach Dave Nielsen. "He went from a solid second to a point where it looked as if he would struggle just to score. He came back with his second-best javelin performance and finished with one of his best 1,500-meter runs. I was very proud of Q and his tenacity."
 
Wubbena's top scoring event on Thursday was the final event of the day, the 1,500, with a 4:48.47 time to score 628 points and place second. He also had the also second-best javelin throw with a 149-6 effort that scored 523. In the hurdles, he scored 661 with a 16.65 time, and also had 538 points in the pole vault (12-2)
 
Homen had the sixth-best hurdles finish (15.85) to score 750 points, while Conley was eighth (16.15) to score 716. Homen also scored 592 points with a career-best 12-10 clearance in the pole vault to place sixth among the 13 competitors, and Conley cleared 11-10 for 511 points.
 
"Parker also had an awesome finish, running himself into seventh place with a gutsy performance in the 1,500 meters," Nielsen added. "And a shout out to freshman Chris Homen for a scoring with an eighth-place finish."
 
McAuliff started the final three events on Thursday by scoring 640 points in the long jump with an effort of 17-4 1/4 to place fifth among the 12 remaining competitors. She capped the competition by scoring 585 points with a 2:38.95 time in the 800 meters.
 
Porterfield had entered the competition ranked fifth among entrants with 5,903 points set at the Bigfoot Multis in Spokane in April. He scored 3,443 points on the first day of that competition and 2,462 on the second day. His previous personal best of 6,038 points came at the 2018 Big Sky Conference Championships when he placed eighth.
 
In addition, entering the Big Sky meet Eastern held down the No. 6 (Wubbena, 5,630), No. 7 (Conley, 5,601) and No. 8 (Homen, 5,533) positions in that event.
 
Knight entered with the third-best performance in the heptathlon with 4,749 points to rank fourth in school history. Her best also came at the Bigfoot Multis when she scored 2,911 points on the first day. McAuliff went to Ogden ranked seventh in the league with 4,175 points.
 
The regular portion of the meet begins with field events at 10 a.m. Pacific time on Friday (May 14), with running events starting at 12:30 p.m. The final day of the competition begins at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time, followed by running events at 1 p.m. Preliminaries will take place in running events through the 800 meters, and all other running events and all field events will be run as finals.
 
As a team, the Eagles are seeking to improve upon their finishes in 2019 when the meet was last held. Eastern's men finished sixth while the women were seventh, but in 2018 the men were fourth and the women sixth.