The Washington State track and field teams won a total of 20 events at the Cougar Indoor/Multis competition. 

WSU freshman Dino Dodig led the charge for the Cougars with a freshman record in the heptathlon.  The native of Serbia won the event by accumulating 5,483 points, surpassing Brandon Brownell’s 2004 total of 5,154 points. 

After taking the lead in Friday’s first four events, Dodig kept the momentum going by running the 60-meters hurdles in 8.44 seconds, pole vaulting a lifetime best height of 14-feet 7 1/4 inches, and running the 1,000 meter in just less than a minute. Dodig said he’s excited about breaking the 10-year-old record in his first heptathlon at WSU. 

“I have a lot of meets (during) the season (and) this makes me feel like I’m ready to compete for the next heptathlon in the Seattle championship,” Dodig said. “If I compete there really well, it means I’m ready for the decathlon, which is my main event.”

Head Coach Rick Sloan said Dodig was solid throughout the meet’s events. 

“I think that the long-jump was a great performance for him and also the shot put on the first day, a great performance (overall),” Sloan said. 

Dodig’s teammate, redshirt senior Spencer Wordell, also had success in the heptathlon as the runner up with a personal record of 5,230 points. 

Other winners on the track Saturday included freshman Danielle Darden in the women’s 60-meter dash, finishing with a time of 8.83 seconds.  Sophomore CharLee Linton finished strong in the women’s 3,000-meter run with a personal record time of 10:03.74. 

“CharLee Linton did an outstanding job in the 3,000 with a couple of high quality pacemakers, but when it came time for her to take the lead and do the job, she did a tremendous job,” Sloan said. 

The Cougars also dominated the jumps, winning all four of the events.  Redshirt junior Charlotte Muschamp found herself atop the leader board once again by tying a meet record height of 5-8 and 3/4 inches in the high jump, though she consistently cleared 5-10 earlier in the season.  Senior Kelsey Bueno and sophomore Kristine Felix were evenly matched throughout the day on the pole vault. Both cleared the bar 12-5 1/2 inches, and Bueno won on fewer misses. 

“Kristine and (I) are always going to be neck and neck,” Bueno said.  “(Felix) is a great pole vaulter, and we both have are pros and cons.  It’s more about how I vaulted (Saturday) and less about the height and the place I finished in.”

Senior Andrew Gonzales rallied to win the 3,000-meter long-distance race in a time of 8:24.83, and freshman Daniel Zmuda ran a prelim time of 8.01 seconds in the high hurdles to tie a WSU freshman record.

“This meet was another step in the right direction for us,” Sloan said. “We’re getting back to training. The people who aren’t quite getting it done yet, we’ll find out why and get them up to speed. Another month until the championships, so it’s time to start taking some big steps forward.”