Establishing a new school record in the Decathlon was Petersen, who came into the meet with a school record total of 5,534 points. He started the competition by establishing a new lifetime-best of 11.96 seconds in the 100m, and used solid marks in the Long Jump (20-05.25), Shot Put (33-05.25) and High Jump (5-11.25). He was just off of his lifetime-best in the 400m, running 55.42 seconds, and 110m Hurdles, running 16.31 seconds. He strung together performances of 101-11 in the Discus, 12-09.5 in the Pole Vault, and 131-05 in the Javelin. Heading in the last event, Petersen needed to break 5:15 in the 1500m in order to eclipse the 5,700-point barrier. With a PR of 5:25.46, Petersen capped off his career in a big way, dropping 17 seconds off of his PR as he crossed the line in 5:08.65 to give him a final total of 5,738 points. That broke his previous school record by over 200 points, as Petersen holds both the indoor Heptathlon and outdoor Decathlon school records.
