Two days.
Nine events.
Four medals.
Even for experienced athletes, the combination seems impossible.
But for freshman Jillian Ourada, these numbers were a reality this weekend at the Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) track and field meet.
Ourada, usually a distance and hurdle runner, became the inaugural champion of the women’s pentathlon on top of medaling in her regular events.
Head Coach Ed Fye said that it was an easy decision to put Ourada in the Multi-event portion of the GPAC meet.
“Jill (Ourada) did distance and ran hurdles,” he said. “It’s really an odd combination, and right off the bat we noticed how athletic she is. (Coach) Brad (Jenny) said something about putting her in the Multi-events and so we tried it. She’s a natural - she picks things up very fast.”
New to the list of scored events, the Multi-events are split into a pentathlon for the women and a heptathlon for the men. The pentathlon consists of 55-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump, and 800-meter dash.
Ourada said she was surprised she had won.
“I definitely didn’t think I would win, but I was going to try,” she said. “It was only the second time I’d ever done it. I even PR’ed (personal record) in three of the five events, so it was really good.”
On the men’s side, Doane was led by freshmen Rob Keeny and Brad Higgins, who placed first and second in the heptathlon. After competing in the 55-meter dash, long jump, shot put, high jump, 60-meter hurdles, pole vault, and 1,000-meter run, Keeny said it was well worth the extra effort.
“I was a little tired in my regular hurdles race,” he said. “But it didn’t effect my times very much so it was fine. I didn’t really care how it went, whether I won or Brad won. It just mattered that we started off with those points”
Fye said that it was important to get a good start to the meet by doing well in the Multi-events.
“We had four girls and five guys in the top of the event,” he said. “But Jill was really the most impressive though. She did five events the day before, and then went out again the day after and did her four regular events and placed in all of them. She did the multi and then turned around and ran two heats of hurdles, the open 400, and the 4x4, and Rob (Keeny) ran his regular hurdles race. To ask them to do that and still compete well is a huge thing.”
After placing in the Multi-events, Ourada, Keeny, and Higgins are all ranked in the top six in the nation, and Keeny said it didn’t come without a lot of hard work.
“It was definitely more time to prepare (for the Multi-events),” he said. “During Interterm we spent a lot more time at the gym and stuff. We all worked really close in doing this, Brad especially – he’s a great guy to work with and we really pushed each other.”
Even after training for the pentathlon, Ourada said she was very tired after competing both days.
“It was rough having to do both,” she said. “Saturday I ran the two heats of the 60 hurdles and I was just so tired and started to get muscle fatigue, but I just ran my race and I’m very happy with how the team did overall.”
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