Saturday's MVC Championships Results
DES MOINES, Iowa – University of Evansville senior Joey Rucinski (Ft. Wayne, Ind./Concordia Lutheran) added a seventh-place finish in the decathlon on Saturday to his sixth-place finish in the pole vault from Friday to highlight the Purple Aces' Saturday performances at the Missouri Valley Conference Track & Field Championships in Des Moines, Iowa.
Rucinski would start his Saturday with a personal-best performance in the 110-meter hurdles portion of the decathlon with a time of 16.64. After placing fifth in both the decathlon's pole vault and javelin competitions, Rucinski capped his Valley Championship decathlon performance by rallying to win the 1,500-meters with a time of 5:09.96. Rucinski trailed the entire race, but was able to overtake Illinois State's Ariel Atias in the race's final 15 meters to win. Overall, Rucinski finished with 5,841 points.
"Considering everything that Joey did yesterday, it was impressive to see him come back today and go all out and place seventh overall in the decathlon," said UE head coach Don Walters. "For him to go out by winning the 1,500-meters in the way that he did was only fitting. He will never quit and will also keep pushing. He has done that his entire career, and it was only fitting that his last race would end like that."
Rucinski wasn't the only Purple Ace to shine on Saturday, as UE set over 17 personal-best marks on the afternoon. Freshman Preston Riggs (Ft. Branch, Ind./Gibson Southern) had arguably the top day for UE, as he set a new PR mark in all five events of the decathlon on Saturday (110-meter hurdles, discus, pole vault, javelin and 1,500-meters) on his way to a personal-best decathlon score of 5,027.
"What Preston did today was impressive," said Walters. "He is a tremendous athlete, and is only just scratching the surface of how good he can be for us. His future is very bright!"
On the track, UE set 10 personal-best marks. In the 100-meters, junior Giovanni Purser (10.84), sophomore Geordan Blades (10.77), and freshmen Denzel Lasam (11.79) and Kara Yunker (13.20) set PR marks on the men's and women's sides, respectively. Junior Jackson Maurer (Evansville, Ind./Gibson Southern) and senior Haley Dean (Lacombe, La./Lakeshore) both set PRs in the 400-meters with times of 53.13 on the men's side and 1:01.46 on the women's. UE set three PR marks in the men's 800-meter race with freshman Adam Oulgout (1:55.20), senior Carson Kline (2:02.01) and sophomore Luke Watts (2:24.23) all setting new personal standards. Senior Emma Boebinger (Frankfort, Ky./Western Hills) also set a PR mark in the women's 800-meters (2:52.52) in her final race as a Purple Ace.
The Missouri Valley Conference Track & Field Championships will conclude on Sunday beginning at 11:30 a.m. with both the triple jump and discus events. UE will also compete in the 4x100-meter and 4x400-meter relay races and the men's and women's 5,000-meter events. The final day will be available to watch on ESPN3, beginning at 12:50 p.m.
