ASU women take lead at Pac-10s

Arizona State senior Jessica Pressley knew she had it in her. She just wasn’t sure when it would come out. Pressley picked a good time for the two best shot-put efforts of her career Friday, setting a school record with a mark of 61 feet, 7 inches to win the event in the women’s Pac-10 track and field championship at ASU’s Sun Angel Stadium.

The throwers helped ASU, the 2008 NCAA indoor and defending NCAA outdoor champion, take a lead in team points.

Through six events, ASU led with 75 points. Stanford was second with 49.

The ASU men, who won the NCAA indoor title this spring, will be hard-pressed to pass UCLA and Oregon. Through six events, Oregon led with 61.5 points, UCLA was second with 48.5 and ASU was third with 35.

The meet continues today, with the men’s hammer starting at 10:30 a.m. Other field events begin at 5 p.m and running events start at 6:30 p.m.

Pressley said she had been throwing well in practice. “It was just a matter of when it would come out,’’ she said.

The conference championship was certainly a good time, especially being her final home meet and with her parents were in attendance.

She scratched on her final throw in the preliminaries. Between sessions, she had a talk with ASU throwing coach Dave Dumble. “He said, ‘We want the A-plus standard for this one. ...’ ”

On her next throw, she surpassed 60 feet for the first time and beat her personal record of 59-7 by two feet. On her final throw, she went 59-11.

“Beating my personal record twice — that’s what I call a good day,’’ she said.

It was a good day for the ASU women’s throwers overall, who finished first, second and fifth in the shot and first, third and fourth in the hammer to give the Sun Devils 43 points from those two events.

ASU is also expected to be strong in the discus today.

“In the back of our head, we’ve been thinking about sweeping the discus,’’ said ASU junior Sarah Stevens, who won the hammer (216-11) and was second in the shot Friday. “We have three of the top four girls.”

Pressley was fourth in the hammer, while ASU senior Tai Battle was third in the hammer and fifth in the shot.

ASU also went 1-2 in the women’s 400 meters, as Jeavon Benjamin finished in 53.54 and Jordan Durham in 53.79.

The Sun Devil men, meanwhile, picked up three victories Friday night.

Senior Kyle Alcorn took the lead early and won the 3,000 steeple chase in 8 minutes, 43.81 seconds.

ASU’s Matt Turner won the long jump with a mark of 25-8.75.

He took the lead early and then passed on a number of jumps, attempting to save himself for today’s high jump and triple jump.

The Sun Devils pulled off a 1-2 finish in the men’s shot put, with junior Zack Lloyd winning at a mark of 69-0 and Ryan Whiting finishing second at 66-7.