WALNUT, Calif. – Two South Dakota State steeplechasers posted top-10 finishes at the Mt. SAC Relays Thursday. Drew Kraft and Megan West both finished in the top-10 of their respective steeplechase sections. Kraft posted a personal-best time of 9 minutes, 14.79 seconds to take ninth in section 'B' of the men's steeplechase and West took seventh in section 'B' of the women's steeplechase as she dropped 18 seconds off her personal-best to post a final time of 10:45.57. West's time today moves her into third all-time at SDSU.

Also running at Mt. SAC was Joel Reichow. Reichow ran a time of 30:38.93 in the 'A' section of the 10,000-meter run to place 24th.

Bennett Mercil represented the Jackrabbits in the 'B' section of the decathlon at the California Invitational. The first five events took place last night and the final five events took place today. 

In last night's competition, Mercil began the decathlon competition with a time of 11.88 in the 100-meter dash. After that, he jumped a distance of 20 feet, 3 inches in the long jump. He went on to tally a personal-best throw of 39-4 in the shot put event. Mercil ended the day with a height of 5-5 1/4 in the high jump and a time of 54.06 in the 400-meter dash. After day one, he had a total of 3,054 points.

Today's action consisted of the 110-meter hurdles, the discus throw, the pole vault, the javelin throw and the 1500-meter run.

He started the second day of competition with a time of 16.23 in the 110-meter hurdles. In the second event of the day, the discus throw, he recorded a mark of 95-9. In the pole vault event, Mercil cleared a height of 13-9 1/4. Mercil posted a personal-best distance of 140-7 in the javelin throw. In the final event of the competition, the 1500-meter run, Mercil ran a time of 4:46.82. Overall, Mercil tallied a personal-best score of 6,005 points to place 12th. He now moves into eighth all-time at SDSU in the decathlon event.

The Jackrabbit hammer throwers also competed Thursday. Cullen Mack led the Jackrabbit men with his distance of 173-9 (14th) and Amy Paulzine led the Jackrabbit women with her mark of 170-4 (9th).

The Jackrabbits continue their California trip tomorrow at the Long Beach State Invite and the Bryan Clay Invite.