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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Remembering her roots ... Daniel Meyer Pool reopens June 17 ... Gun Violence Awareness Day event set on Ashland Plaza ... Remembering her roots ... Daniel Meyer Pool reopens June 17 ... Gun Violence Awareness Day event set on Ashland Plaza ... COLLEGE TRACK AND FIELD SOU's Perkinson claims national title Newcomer to 10K, she triumphs with strong kick Comment By SOU Sports information DailyTidings.com By SOU Sports information Posted May. 26, 2016 at 8:50 PM By SOU Sports information Posted May. 26, 2016 at 8:50 PM » Social News GULF SHORES, Ala. — Southern Oregon University sophomore Jessa Perkinson isn’t the fastest champion in NAIA history, but she may be the most efficient. A softball standout in high school, Perkinson didn’t compete in her first track meet until last year and didn’t make her 10,000-meter debut until April 1, when she knocked out the old SOU record by 21 seconds. In her second try at the 10K, Thursday evening on the opening day of the NAIA Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Blackwell Stadium, she dazzled again to top the 14-person field. Perkinson’s time of 36 minutes, 10.83 seconds was good for another school record, the eighth title in Raider women’s history, the third in the last three years and the first in a distance race. Her upset served as the bow on a day when Jared Hixon (1,500 meters) and SOU’s men’s 4x100 relay squad qualified for Saturday’s finals and Joseph Dotson settled into 10th place through five events of the decathlon. Perkinson entered as the No. 3 seed (36:14.72), 1½ minutes behind top-seeded Karis Frankian of The Master’s College (Calif.), last year’s runner-up. Perkinson and Frankian lost the rest of the field by the last few laps and went stride for stride until there were 200 meters to go. That’s when Perkinson went into a dead sprint, and her opponent could not. Frankian finally hit the finish line 13 seconds after Perkinson crossed. Frankian is also the favorite in Saturday’s 5K finals, and Perkinson is seeded fifth. Perkinson will attempt to add another accolade to a season that already includes All-America performances at the NAIA Cross Country Championships and Indoor Championships with SOU’s distance medley relay team. Caleb Diaz ran the only other final of the day for SOU in the men’s 10K, placing 17th in 33:06.87. The 4x100 relay team — consisting of Julius Shellmire, Zac Hannan, Hayden Saparto and Cameron Bremner — entered as the No. 11 seed of 23 teams but had the fifth-fastest qualifying time, 41.47, to become the first Raider men’s 4x100 team to qualify for the NAIA finals. They placed third in a seven-team heat. Wiley (Texas) had the top trial time, 40.19, going into Saturday’s 12:50 p.m. final. In the 1,500 trials, Hixon cruised into fifth place in his heat and ninth of 22 overall in 3:54.52, just a few seconds off his seed time. The top six finishers in his heat (which included the top qualifying time of 3:53.39) were all within a second of each other, and all 12 qualifiers for Saturday’s 1:10 p.m. final were separated by two seconds. Hixon will try to be an All-America for the second time and outdo his fourth-place finish of 2014. Dotson, who is one of just three freshmen in the 15-person decathlon field, racked up 3,218 points — just 79 points out of the top eight and not far off the pace he set at the CCC Multi-Event Championships, where he had 3,306 points at the midway point on his way to 6,408. He set personal bests in taking second in the shot put (38 feet, 2¾ inches), 10th in the long jump (20-2¼), fifth in the 400 (51.54), 10th in the 100 (11.63) and 15th in the high jump (5-7). The decathlon concludes today. By SOU Sports information DailyTidings.com By SOU Sports information Posted May. 26, 2016 at 8:50 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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