A very special Day

NORTHRIDGE — Sharon Day inched closer to realizing her Olympic dreams Saturday when she won the women’s high jump at the Big West Championships in Northridge.

Day, a Costa Mesa High graduate who now competes for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, cleared 6 feet, 4 3/4 inches, or 1.95 meters, an Olympic “A” standard that allows Day to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials June 27-July 6 in Eugene, Ore.

“I was feeling good today,” Day said. “I found my rhythm. I was on today. I just put it all together.”

The mark ties Day, the 2005 NCAA women’s high jump national champion, with the qualifying mark of U.S. women’s high jump leaders Amy Acuff and Chaunte Howard, and moves her ahead of Deirdre Mullen’s mark of 1.92 meters.

In order to make the Beijing squad, Day will have to be one of the top three jumpers at the trials, so hitting the mark Saturday was a relief.

“I was jumping up and down on the pit,” Day said in a telephone interview. “I was so excited. Then, I sat down on the track and cried a little bit. I was just so happy. It was a big lift off my back.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better meet last week or this weekend.”

Last weekend, Day won the heptathlon at the Big West Multi-Event championships, and set new school and conference records as she competed.

Day scored 5, 642 points in the heptathlon to break the previous Cal Poly record of 5,412 set by Sharon Hanson in 1987.

Idaho’s Manuela Kurrat set the previous Big West record in 2005 with 5,614 points.

Friday, Day won the Big West long jump title and took third in the javelin.

Day’s father and high school coach Eugene was at the CIF Southern Section Divisional Championships in Walnut Saturday coaching Costa Mesa triple jumper Tatiana Williams.

“She said she wanted to go out to bang, when this year started,” Eugene Day said. “She told me, ‘I felt I can do a lot more than I am doing.’ These past two weekends she just put everything together.”

— From staff reports