Gooris Steps Up on Day One of Drake Relays Decathlon

Wednesday, April 27

Des Moines, Iowa

TBA

University of Northern Iowa

Drake Relays

Gooris Steps Up on Day One of Drake Relays Decathlon

4/27/2011 8:00:00 AM | Track and Field

By: UNI Athletics Communications

April 27, 2011

Results

DES MOINES, Iowa – University of Northern Iowa junior Daniel Gooris is in tenth place at the mid-point of the Drake Relays decathlon, scoring 3,470 points through the first five events. To this point, Gooris has out-performed all five of his marks from this season's Texas Relays, where he scored 3,317 points on the opening day.

The junior from Albuquerque, N.M., is only slightly behind the career-best pace he set at last year's Drake Relays on his way to 7,229 points. Gooris scored 3,494 points on the opening day last year.

Gooris opened the day by clocking a personal-best time of 11.61 seconds in the 100m dash to score 730 points. He followed up with a jump of 20-06.50 (6.26m) in the long jump and threw 42-07.50 (12.99m) in the shot put for the third-best mark in the field. Gooris cleared a season-best 6-02.25 (1.89m) in the high jump before wrapping up the day with a 400m time of 52.02.

Freshman Ben Lindaman is tied in 11^th place with 3,058 points. Lindaman's strongest event was the shot put, where he recorded the fifth-best throw in the field with a toss of 40-07.50 (12.38m) to score 629 points.

Former Panther and three-time All-American Mat Clark stands in second place with 3,848 points. Clark took third in the 100m, long jump and 400m portions of the decathlon to highlight a steady day. Clark won the Drake Relays decathlon title in 2009 as a senior at UNI.

Lauren Lindaman scored 2,601 points on the first day of competition in the women's heptathlon to stand in seventh place. Lindaman got off to a strong start with a season-best time of 15.19 seconds in the 100m hurdles to score 817 points. She also cleared 5-00.50 (1.54m) in the high jump, threw 27-00.50 (8.24m) in the shot put, and recorded a time of 27.11 seconds in the 200m to close out the day.

Multi-events competition will conclude on Thursday at Drake Stadium. UNI sophomore Brett Egan will also run in the men's 10,000m race at 8:10 p.m. Thursday evening.

NOTE: Four of the past seven Drake Relays decathlon crowns have gone to athletes with UNI ties. Former UNI head coach and student-athlete Travis Geopfert won the title in 2004 and 2006, and former Panther All-Americans Raven Cepeda and Mat Clark won the event in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Gooris placed fourth in the decathlon at the 2010 Drake Relays.