Holliday makes successful return.

Byline: Chris Hansen The Register-Guard

With seemingly little effort and no rust, pole vaulter Becky Holliday cleared the first attempt of her 2004 outdoor season on Saturday.

She then made her second ... and her third ... and every attempt thereafter, until she eventually missed on her sixth jump of the day at the Oregon Invitational track and field meet at Hayward Field.

It was, if nothing else, an encouraging return to the sport for the former Oregon athlete and NCAA outdoor record-holder, who hadn't competed since the World Championships last August.

Holliday, now competing for New Balance, won the event with a height of 14 feet, 5 1/2 inches - the same height that won her the NCAA title last spring as an Oregon senior, but well under her record of 14-8.

"I've been out training for so long, I've been ready to get some action," said Holliday, who finished third at the U.S. Championships last summer. "I've just been working on getting faster and stronger. I haven't even been working on the pole vault. So I was nervous coming in just because I didn't know where I was at."

Holliday waited until the bar had been raised to 12-8 to make her first attempt, which she cleared effortlessly. Then came clearances at 13-5, 13-9 3/4 , 14-1 3/4 and 14-5 1/2 - the last three coming after her fellow competitors had dropped out.

Holliday had the bar raised to 14-9, but didn't come close on her three attempts, as she struggled with a heavier pole.

"(At first) I was on poles I was confident using," said Holliday, who will be back at Hayward next Saturday for the Oregon Twilight meet. "But my goal is to raise the bar this year, and that means bigger poles. I thought this was a good chance to get one of my bigger poles and get up on it a couple times. I didn't exactly have confidence on the runway getting on those poles. I hadn't touched them in a year."

Saturday's field had a limited UO presence, though the Ducks still had some individual success.

Junior Sarah Malone, who has the third-best javelin throw in the U.S. this year at 179-7 - also a school record - won her event with a mark of 174-5 despite throwing into a strong wind.

Also, redshirting junior transfer Brittany Hinchcliffe beat her personal record in the hammer by more than 3 feet with a winning heave of 200-3. She set her PR of 197-2 at the Oregon Preview in March.

"Well, the goal is to keep going up," Hinchcliffe said.

Hinchcliffe also just missed the Olympic Trials qualifying "B" standard of 203 feet. The "B" standard gets an athlete invited to the trials, while making the "A" standard of 218 gets an athlete a paid trip to the trials.

"Right now my training is going great and my throws are going farther," Hinchcliffe said. "And (assistant coach Lance Deal) is the first coach I've worked with who knows how to peak an athlete."

A chance to qualify for the Olympic Trials (July 8-19 in Sacramento) in the steeplechase also brought former Tualatin High School and Arizona State runner Kelly MacDonald to Eugene on Saturday. The two-time Pac-10 Conference 5,000-meter champion won the steeplechase in 10 minutes, 16.29 seconds, well behind the qualifying standard of 10:00.

"I'm not too disappointed," said MacDonald, who is now an assistant coach at Washington. "It was a little windy on the backstretch."

Interestingly, the No. 1 steeplechaser in the world, Carrie Messner, also was competing Saturday, just not in her signature event. The Asics-sponsored runner finished fourth in the 1,500 with a time of 4:16.76.

"I would have liked to run against her today," MacDonald said. "It would have been a better race."

CAPTION(S):

Becky Holliday cleared the bar on all of her first five attempts, winning the women's pole vault competition with a height of 14-5 1/2 in her first meet of the season.