Gripping the pole with both hands and locking his eyes onto his target, Bevan Hart crouched down, rocked back and forth and prepared himself to vault the bar at 15 feet, 1 inch.
The crowd, in true Tracktown fashion, rhythmically began clapping and stomping, urging the defending Pacific-10 Conference champion to once again go the distance.
But Hart needed to concentrate. He silenced the crowd with a few, short waves of his left hand, not once taking his eyes off of the end of the runway. Again, he rocked back and forth, and shouted some words of encouragement to himself.
Then he took off, and smashed the height.
Several minutes later, Hart was the only competitor remaining in the pole vault portion of the Pac-10 decathlon championships, and he was still obliterating heights.
He didn’t fail until 17-8 1/2. A new personal best for the soon-to-be champion.
Hart won the Pac-10 title on Sunday with a score of 7,890, just missing the United States Olympic Trial standard of 7,900. Competition of the 10-event contest started at noon on Saturday.
“I’m happy with my score, it’s about a 120-second PR,” Hart said. “I was pleased because Ed trained me all the way through Wednesday. We didn’t really take a break for this.
“It showed through the high jump, long jump and hurdles, but I came up big in a couple other events.”
Oregon’s Santiago Lorenzo finished in second place with another personal-best score of 7,649. The native of Argentina also fell just short of his country’s Olympic standard.
“I’m so happy. After the first day, I wasn’t very pleased,” Lorenzo said. “But the hurdles came out very well, and I did my best three throws ever.”
Oregon’s Billy Pappas finished fourth with 7,184 points behind Washington’s Jacob Predmore, who finished with 7,298. Doug Sells finished ninth with 6,615 points. Both Pappas and Sells also had personal bests.
“Overall, I’m very pleased and very proud of these guys,” Oregon decathlon coach Bill Lawson said. “Oregon just scored 13 points toward the Pac-10 title.”
Lorenzo was just 48 points behind Hart after outscoring him 704 to 667 in the discus throw with a mark of 137-8. However, Hart’s blistering performance in the pole vault earned the Golden Bear 1,035 points. Hart never looked back after that.
Lorenzo put the nails in his second-place finish with a field-best 193-4 throw in the javelin.
“His overall strength and conditioning have yet to improve,” Lawson said. “I fully expect Santiago to be an 8,000-point decathlete before he graduates. I don’t know if he can make a serious run at Oregon’s record, but I think he’s going to be a player in the NCAAs to come. You don’t want to put too much pressure on the guy.”
Pappas was in close contention for second place throughout both days of competition, but lost the most ground on Predmore in Saturday’s high jump. He scored a 670 in that event by clearing 6-0 3/4, about four inches less than what he cleared at the Texas Decathlon in Austin last March.
The 110-meter hurdles was Pappas’ strong point of the meet. He finished second with a score of 840 in that event.
Sells’ ninth-place finish didn’t give Pac-10 points to Oregon, but it was a learning experience for the freshman. Low scores in the final two events — the javelin and the 1,500 — prevented him from making a run at eighth place.