SOU REMAINING SCHEDULE
FRIDAY'S EVENTS (All times Pacific)
10 a.m. – Men's Pole Vault final (Le Bel)
11 a.m. – Women's High Jump final (Stevens)
1:30 p.m. – Women's 5K final (Johnson)
1:55 p.m. – Men's 5K final (Weisgerber)

MEET CENTRAL

MARION, Ind. – Southern Oregon star Abi Stevens did everything but come away with the heptathlon title on Thursday at the NAIA Outdoor Championships.

In what is expected to be the third-year Raider's final trip to the meet, Stevens marked her 10th overall All-America accolade with a second-place finish, her best ever on the national stage. Later in the day, SOU freshmen Alyssa Johnson and Mason Weisgerber qualified for Friday's 5,000-meter finals.

Stevens' score of 5,205 points would have been good enough to win each of the previous seven heptathlon championships. It broke the school record of 5,132 that Melanie Byrne set while winning the national title 35 years ago. It was a 378-point PR, and 485 points higher than Stevens' previous best at the Outdoor Championships.

And yet it wasn't quite enough to beat British Columbia's Rebecca Dutchak, who scored 5,252 points to comfortably surpass the PR she established last month that broke the Cascade Conference Championships record.

Stevens – whose efforts on Wednesday included three PRs and her best high jump in two years – nearly closed the gap in the 800-meter finale with another PR of 2 minutes 16.26 seconds, outscoring Dutchak by 162 points in the discipline. She entered the race three points out of second place and 11 ahead of fourth.

Stevens has entered 10 national competitions and placed top-seven in each of them. She'll be in an 11th, and presumably her last, as the No. 15 seed in Friday's high jump, looking to tie Jessa Perkinson for the most overall All-America performances in program history.

Elsewhere for SOU, senior All-American Andrew Mitchell placed 20th in the discus in his final appearance for the Raiders. After taking third place in Wednesday's javelin, Mitchell threw 151 feet 5 inches on his first attempt and fouled his next two.

In the 5K prelims, Johnson was the seventh-fastest out of 30 women's runners with a time of 17:41.02 that was only three seconds off the top finisher. Weisgerber was the runner-up in the fastest men's heat and finished with the second-fastest qualifying time, 14:37.51, in a field of 38. Both will be among 16 racers in Friday's finals.

Frankie Maciel ran the men's prelims in 15:09.11, placing 26th overall. Alejandra Lopez was scratched in the women's 5K after placing 10th in the women's 10K late Wednesday night.

SOU MEN'S RESULTS
5,000m Prelims (38 total runners)
2. Mason Weisgerber, 14:37.51
26. Frankie Maciel, 15:09.11

Discus (30)
20. Andrew Mitchell, 46.16m (151-5)

SOU WOMEN'S RESULTS
5,000m Prelims (30 total runners)
7. Alyssa Johnson, 17:41.02
–. Alejandra Lopez, DNS

Heptathlon (16)
2. Abi Stevens, 5,205
Day 1: 100m Hurdles – 14.86 (860); High Jump – 1.70m (855); Shot Put – 10.55m (566); 200m – 25.52 (840)
Day 2: Long Jump – 5.44m (683); Javelin – 32.58m (526); 800m – 2:16.26 (875)