March 9, 2008

Chapel Hill, NC--Bengal Pentathlete Cassie Merkley and assistant track coach Jackie Poulson traveled to the University of North Carolina to compete at the 2008 USATF Indoor Combined Event Championship. Merkley captured fifth place and Poulson took seventh place.

Junior Merkley captured seventh place when she recorded 3,874 points. The women's Pentathlon qualifying standard was 3,750 points. Merkley met the qualifying standard at the Mountain State Games at the beginning of February with 3,874 points and at the Big Sky Indoor Conference at the end of February with 3,892 points when she broke her own Big Sky Pentathlon record that she set the previous year with 3,847 points.

Poulson finished in 5th place with a score of 3,993 points. The winner of the women's competition was former Washington State University's Diana Pickler who is now with Asics with an impressive total of 4,378 points.