Sweet Home alumnus Dakotah Keys won his third-straight Pac-12 decathlon championship, Sunday, leading a group of four Ducks at the multi-event championships, each of whom brought home valuable team points.
“It feels good,” Keys said. “I was stressed out most of the meet. It was just a big up-and-down roller coaster and usually that’s how the decathlon goes.”
Keys entered the day in second place behind USC’s Viktor Fajoyomi, who held the lead since the second event. Fajoyomi’s 217-point lead quickly expanded to 315 after the first two events, Sunday.
“The first day I was a little too focused on what was happening with Viktor,” Keys said. “But coming into today, I wanted to focus on bettering my PRs and I was just thinking about staying confident and relaxed.”
The tables turned as Keys said he was able to find a rhythm heading into his stronger events to end the day, where he outscored Fajoyomi by more than 600 points.
The redshirt junior won the pole vault by clearing 15-5 (4.70m) to bring him within striking distance, and followed with another win in the javelin, throwing 207-6 (63.26m) compared to Fajoyomi’s 124-3 (37.87m).
The difference was enough to give Keys a sizeable cushion heading into the final event of the day, the 1,500.
There he added to his total, finishing third with a time of 4:30.06 and a total of 7,801 points.