Universities from the Pacific Northwest region, and as far as the University of Calgary, gathered for the Cougar Indoor track competition Friday and Saturday.

Day one would include a plethora of achievements for WSU Track and Field.

WSU redshirt senior Alissa Brooks-Johnson won the women’s pentathlon Friday with a total of 4,190 points, good enough for third-best in school history. She earned a personal record time of 8.57 seconds in the 60 meter hurdles, threw a season-best shot put at 11.69 meters and had a PR long jump mark of 5.79 meters.

“I’m very excited and happy with my marks,” Brooks-Johnson said. “I tend to do better on our home track. Moving forward I’m hoping to make it to the NCAA Championships.”

Director of Cross Country/Track and Field Wayne Phipps said Brooks-Johnson’s performance didn’t surprise him.

“Alissa’s performance was fantastic,” he said. “Starting off with an awesome hurdles race really established that confidence that all of her hard work was coming to fruition. And that the coaches were saying about how ready she was, she could feel that it was tangible.”

Redshirt junior thrower Brock Eager won the weight throwing event on Friday with a PR distance of 20.74 meters. The throw also made third-best in school history.

“It is nice to throw at home,” Eager said. “The atmosphere is amazing with all of the teammates yelling and screaming.”

Coming in second in the weight throw was redshirt junior Amani Brown. Brown set a PR with a distance of 18.84 meters, a mark that puts Brown in the school record books with the 10th-best throw in school history.

Brown said technique has been the biggest difference for him between this season and the last.

“I opened up the season throwing pretty far, and I was hoping to move meter-by-meter,” Brown said. “I got closer and closer and finally hit a little closer to my goal. I was really happy that it happened today.”

Redshirt sophomore thrower Aoife Martin won the women’s weight throw with a mark of 17.22 meters. Runner-up was Cougar sophomore Stacia Bell, who posted a throw of 15.93 meters.

Day two was just as eventful. Junior Ja’Maun Charles placed first in the 60 meter dash with a time of 6.83. Teammate Ethan Gardner finished second with a time of 6.93 seconds.

“Earlier in the prelim’s my start wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, so for the final that’s something I really wanted to fix,” Charles said. “To have been able to go and execute that specific piece of my race, and then run the time that I did, that was really good.”

The workload for Charles has increased to prepare him for bigger meets, Phipps said.

“The process that Ja’Maun is going through with Coach Teevens is to make sure that he’s at his very best at the big meets at the end of the year,” he said. “For him to run as well as he’s running right now, being that tired coming into the meet, I think really bodes well. Now as we get to the more important meets, he will be a little more well-rested and I think we’ll see his times drop more significantly.”

Sophomore sprinter Jordyn Tucker took first in the women’s 60 meter dash with a time of 7.69 seconds, and also competed in the women’s 4×400 meter relay.

Redshirt sophomore pole vaulter Molly Scharmann won the women’s pole vault with a mark of 4.05 meters, a personal record. The attempt was fourth-best in WSU history.

“The feeling, right away, is just excitement and the realization is that all the hard work that you’ve been putting in is paying off, that feeling alone is just worth every minute of training,” Scharmann said.

Phipps said Scharmann has improved greatly in her time at WSU.

“It’s so exciting to watch her compete,” he said. “I think they’re just getting to the point where we’re starting to see the benefits of all the hard work and technical expertise of Coach Brad Walker. She’s one of the top vaulters in the Pac-12.”

WSU swept the top four spots in the men’s 3,000-meter run. Freshman Jacob Nicholson finished first, freshman Luke Schilter took second, sophomore Cameron Dean placed third and freshman Zak Kindl took fourth.

“I thought it was great,” Phipps said. “A bunch of young guys who are trying to earn their way to get to some of the bigger meets, so they knew they had to come out here and compete and run hard. I was really proud of those guys.”

Phipps said the work load was heavier for the athletes this week because the coaches wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to compete at home, and it resulted in a successful weekend.

“I was really impressed,” Phipps said. “We had a number of fantastic performances and I think that we definitely showed significant improvement over two weeks ago.”

WSU returns to the track this Friday and Saturday to compete in the Husky Classic in Seattle and the Don Kirby Elite Invitational in New Mexico.