Sweet Home alum Dakotah Keys finished his first track outing of 2015 with a win in the Oregon Relays decathlon last Friday, April 17, finishing with 7,877 points.
That was enough to give the University of Oregon senior fan automatic berth in the NCAA National Championships, well over the automatic qualifier of 7,500.
Keys entered the second day of the competition trailing teammate Mitch Modin, a sophomore, who set four personal bests in Day One and followed with two more the second day in the pole vault and javelin, resulting in a big personal record of 7,578.
But it was Keys who finished on top of leaderboard with 7,833 points, still coming into form after not competing during the indoor season.
Keys finished third at the NCAA Championships last year but had not competed for the Ducks in a multi-event competition since that meet because he had used up his eligibility indoors. He finished the first day with 4,017 points, winning the long jump with a mark of 24-3 ¾ and the high jump clearing 6-8. On the second day he won the javelin (208-4) and the pole vault (15-7) to leave Modin behind.