The two events that effectively summed up Oregon’s dominant showing in the Pac-12 Championships over the weekend occurred less than an hour apart on Sunday.
At 2:35 p.m., middle distance runners Laura Roesler, Becca Friday and Claudia Francis combined to sweep the women’s 800-meter race and earned a total of 24 team points for their efforts. Then, at 3:12 p.m., sprinters English Gardner, Phyllis Francis and Lauryn Newson achieved a similar feat with a sweep in the 200-meter dash, putting 24 more points on the board in the process. @@Names: http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=243&SPSID=4365@@ @@http://pac-12.org/portals/7/images/Track-Field/12-Pac-12-Outdoor-Results.htm@@
Six runners, none finishing below third place and combining for a whopping 48 of the Oregon women’s 200.50 points throughout the entire weekend. It was nothing short of pure dominance, and emblematic of a sterling all-around effort that resulted in inaugural Pac-12 championships for both the Oregon women and men at Hayward Field this weekend. The women’s rare 200-plus point outing gave them an easy victory over second place Stanford (124.50) and a fourth-straight conference title, while the men racked up 140 points to hold off Arizona State (116.50) for their sixth-straight conference championship. @@http://www.pac-12.org/SPORTS/TrackField/Tabid/1462/Article/155596/Oregon-Sweeps-Pac-12-Track–Field-Titles.aspx@@
“Everybody can’t say they won six,” sprinter Mike Berry said. “Some people won two, some people won three, but we won six in a row. That just shows you how storied the program is here, how good our team is, and we’re going to keep getting better each year.”
Oregon Associate Athletic Director Vin Lananna, meanwhile, found himself blown away by the women’s showing. @@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=4363&SPID=243&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=156985&Q_SEASON=2011@@
“The women really just dominated,” Lananna said. “They were fantastic all the way down from start to finish. You score over 200 points, it’s pretty impressive. Even in my wildest dreams, I hadn’t anticipated that we’d score that many points.”
The sweeps in the 800- and 200-meter races were the exclamation marks, to be sure, but there were plenty more highlights on the women’s side. The Ducks started Sunday’s final events with a bang when Phyllis Francis, Gardner, Newson and senior Amber Purvis took first in the 4×100, posting a time of 43.72 and earning 10 early points in the process. Minutes later, junior Jordan Hasay kicked into gear just in the nick of time to win the 1,500-meter final (4:13.28), with juniors Friday and Anne Kesselring following in fourth and fifth, respectively, and the trio combing to earn 19 team points.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” a beaming Hasay said. “I was planning to wait to make my move ’til the last 100, and coach (Lananna) before the race was like, ‘There’s no reason that you don’t have a good kick. I’ve seen you in practice; you sprint, you relax and you just have to believe it.’
“It was such a great field and great athletes. It was just really exciting.”
Phyllis Francis would go on to win the 400-meter race, kicking into another gear over the final 100 meters and earning a new personal best time (52.05) for her efforts – along with inspired praise from Lananna. @@http://pac-12.org/portals/7/images/Track-Field/12-Pac-12-Outdoor-Results.htm@@
“She was awesome,” Lananna said. “She’s just a gamer, she’s matured so well. Coach (Robert) Johnson’s done a really nice job with her. And she was going to be an 800-meter runner, but I think we’ll keep her where she is right now.” @@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=4363&SPID=243&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=186315&Q_SEASON=2011@@
Gardner and Newson took 1-2 in the 100 meters, setting the table for the 800 and 200 sweeps. With the team championship already well in hand, a second-place finish in the day’s last event — the 4×400 relays — put the women over the coveted 200 point mark.
The men, meanwhile, didn’t come close to breaking 200, but still did more than enough to come up with their sixth-straight conference championship. Early on, sprinters Dior Mathis, Arthur Delaney, Joeal Hotchkins and De’Anthony Thomas outperformed expectations with a second-place finish in the 4×100 relay and a time of 40.11 that ranks ninth in team history. Trevor Dunbar and Travis Stanford took third and fourth place respectively in the 1,500 meters, and Delaney’s third-place finish in the 100-meter dash gave Oregon a 101-87.50 lead over Arizona State heading into the 800 meter race.
It was 2:30 p.m. when the 800 runners lined up, and Lananna marked this as a turning point for the men. “At 2:30 this afternoon, we knew that we had to outscore Arizona State in the 800,” Lananna said.
Despite tangling arms with Washington State’s Joe Abbott in the closing 100-meter stretch, junior Elijah Greer held on to win the race in 1:48.48. @@http://pac-12.org/portals/7/images/Track-Field/12-Pac-12-Outdoor-Results.htm@@
“I thought I was going to get him, and then he fought back a little bit, and I was like, ‘Oh no,’” Greer said. “I heard the crowd was roaring, and I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to lose this, I’m going to give everything I have.’ I was definitely a little tired afterward, very tired.”
To go along with Greer’s 10 points, freshman Russell Hornsby and sophomore Boru Guyota combined for seven more with fourth- and fifth-place finishes, and Oregon had some much-needed breathing room.
“Every point is tough to come by, and I was glad we were able to accumulate those at the end,” Lananna said. “It looks a lot bigger of a margin than it was at about 2:30 this afternoon.”
The men closed the day with a third-place finish in the 4×400 meter relay, thus completing a victory that was forged in large part through a careful strategy that included emphasis on some of Saturday’s earlier events. Things like freshman Sam Crouser winning the javelin throw — and 10 coveted points — on Saturday were all part of the plan.
“We just wanted to have a chance at the first day,” Lananna said. “(Distance coach) Andy Powell, who kind of pays attention to all those things, and put all the pieces together — he had outlined for me what are the things we need to do to be able to win, and outlined it for the rest of the staff. And the guys came through in flying colors.” @@coaches: http://www.goducks.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&SPID=243&SPSID=4363@@