Heptathlon

Molly Moore of Occidental College was in third place after the first day of the heptathlon in the NCAA Division III track championships at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. Moore, a senior, scored 2,622 points in the first four events of the seven-event competition. Sonja Ming of Baldwin-Wallace was the first-day leader with 2,924 points. Moore ran 16.11 seconds in the 100-meter low hurdles, leaped 5-2 in the high jump, recorded a mark of 33-8 3/4 in the shotput and clocked 27.62 in the 200.

Heather Sterlin of Mission Viejo High won the heptathlon at the Golden West Invitational track and field meet Friday at Sacramento. She won three events and finished no worse than third in the four others, scoring a personal-best and national-leading 4,784 points. Rose Marie Harris, the 1991 Junior Olympics champion from Connecticut, was second with 4,619 points and Adra Hysong, a four-event winner at the Arizona state meet, was third with 4,523 points.

Gayle Hunter, one of the top multi-event athletes in the nation, won the women's heptathlon last weekend at the USA Junior outdoor track and field championship at Texas A&M in College Station. Hunter, a graduate of Riverside North High who has signed with Penn State, finished with 3,231 points on Saturday, ahead of the 3,156 recorded by runner-up Hillary Werth, a sister of Dodger outfielder Jayson Werth who will be a senior this fall at Chatham (Ill.) Glenwood High.

Silver Charm, who just missed winning the 1997 Triple Crown and finished second last month in the Breeders' Cup Classic, will open his 1999 schedule Jan. 30 in the $500,000 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, Fla. Robert Umphrey, Gulfstream's director of racing, said he received a commitment Christmas week from trainer Bob Baffert to run Silver Charm in the nationally televised race. "Naturally, we're thrilled to have him," Umphrey said.

Melanie Clarke of Valley College won the heptathlon in a United States vs. Canada junior national team track and field dual meet in Levelland, Tex., last weekend. Clarke recorded a personal best of 5,099 points, easily outdistancing runner-up Kallen Madden of Texas A&M (4,665). On Saturday, the 1989 El Camino Real High graduate broke the heptathlon 200-meter meet record by 0.2 seconds, clocking 25.2.

Bob Kersee the coach and Bob Kersee the husband were having an argument Saturday night. Kersee's athlete/wife, Jackie Joyner, was going to have to experience no small amount of pain in the 800 meters in order to break her own world record in the heptathlon. So even as Joyner was running to a world record of 7,161 points, Kersee had a raging interior argument. "This is the first time that the husband and the coach were battling," Kersee said. "I was tired, and I knew she had to be.

Karin Grelsson of UC Irvine finished with 5,324 points for ninth place in the women's heptathlon competition Saturday at the NCAA Track and Field Championships at Baton Rouge, La. In the final three heptathlon events, Grelsson, a sophomore from Sweden, had marks of 18-feet 11-inches in the long jump and 123-4 in the javelin, and she ran the 800 meters in 2 minutes 23.52 seconds. Defending champion Jolanda Jones of the University of Houston won the event with 6,068 points.

Edison standout Kerry O'Bric captured the heptathlon title at the junior national championships Saturday at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. O'Bric posted the nation's third-best hepthatlon score with 5,114 points. Ashley Bethel, who will be a junior at Mission Viejo High in the fall, finished third with 4,991.

Ashley Bethel of Mission Viejo High leads after the first day of the heptathlon at the U.S. National Junior championships Friday at Delaware, Ohio. Bethel scored 3,178 points in the first four events. The final three events are today. Kerry O'Bric, an Edison graduate who will compete at Baylor next season, is second with 3,121 points.

Debra Larsen of Cal Poly Pomona set a meet record in the heptathlon with 5,827 points Thursday on the second day of competition at the four-day NCAA Division II track and field championships at Cal State Los Angeles. Larsen's score was the seventh-best ever for an American. The junior from Aberdeen, Wash., was seventh in the heptathlon and eighth in the high jump at the 1984 Olympic Trials. Janet Nicolls of Pomona was second with 5,619 points.