Last year the Oregon men’s track and field team wasn’t expected to win the conference championship meet, but they did anyway, surprising their competitors as a young and talented team capable of performing when the odds were stacked against them.
Those were the stakes sophomore Ashton Eaton preferred. He liked being the underdog rather than having a target on his back.
But as defending Pacific-10 Conference champs, Oregon, and Eaton, will have to deal with it. In fact, Eaton’s already given the Ducks a head start by winning last week’s decathlon.
“It’s a good head start,” Eaton said of the decathletes scoring 19 points. “It’s more than we expected.”
Duck rankings based on tentative heat sheets
| First: | Nicole Blood, 1,500m and 5,000m; Rachel Yurkovich, javelin; Phil Alexander, 200m; A.J. Acosta, 1,500m and 5,000m |
| Second: | Keshia Baker, 400m; Andrew Wheating, 800m; men’s 4x400m relay; Colin Veldman, hammer |
| Third: | Sarah Pearson, 10,000m; Carlos Trujillo, 5,000m; Danny Mercado, 10,000m; Jordan Stray, hammer |
| Fourth: | Zoe Buckman, 800m; Alex Kosinski, 1,500m; Zoe Nelson, 10,000m; women’s 4x400m relay; Melissa Gergel, pole vault; Marcus Dillon, 100m; Kenny Klotz, 5,000m; Diego Mercado, 10,000m; Isaac Stoutenburgh, 3,000m steeplechase; Mike Simmons, javelin; Ashton Eaton, long jump |
With the early lead, Oregon is already eyeing an upset of favorites USC and the home team, Arizona State.
“We feel good about our chances,” associate coach Dan Steele said. “We’re not going to be the favorites…but I think we have a chance to go in there and shake some things up.”
Steele said the team may not have the superstar power like last year’s team, without the likes of pole vaulter Tommy Skipper or redshirting Galen Rupp, but there’s plenty of talent spread across all the events.
“They haven’t emerged as superstars yet – they’re sophomores,” Steele said of the main constituent of Oregon’s top athletes.
Steele said it’ll be a matter of winning their best events, namely the distance races, and hoping other people come up big throughout the weekend. Oregon trains its athletes hoping their best performances come at the end of the season, Steele noted.
In any case, he expects the meet to be decided by its final event.
“It could come down to the 4×400 again – just like last year,” Steele said. “If it does, I feel good about our chances.”
Women hope to make statement
The Oregon women’s team hasn’t finished better than fifth in more than a decade, when they finished second in 1996.
With that, they feel like this is the year they can make a statement by removing themselves from the men’s shadow and surprising a lot of people.
“Last year it was tough, we didn’t finish so high,” distance runner Nicole Blood said of last season’s seventh-place finish. “This year we’re going to make a huge, huge improvement.”
Like the men, the Oregon women have already benefited from last week’s meet. The Ducks reside in a tie for second place heading into the meet after scoring nine points from heptathletes Brianne Theisen and Kalindra McFadden.
Blood said the men’s influence, both in track and cross country, will help the women’s team to perform better.
“They’re an inspiration to work with everyday,” she said. “We’re working just as hard as they are.”
Blood is the Pac-10 leader in 1,500 and 5,000 meter races, but she’s not sure if she’s running both yet. If asked, she said she believes she could win both.
The women are also counting on the performance of Pac-10 and NCAA leader Rachel Yurkovich, whose best javelin throw has given her a big edge against her competition. Yurkovich is the two-time defending champ in the event.
Yurkovich has limited herself to competing about once every two weeks this season to keep her away from the injury bug.
“I’ve had a lot of trouble in the past with injury stuff,” she said.
Regardless of her own performance, Yurkovich wants to see her team improve by leaps and bounds from last year’s disappointing end.
“We definitely have the potential to improve more,” she said. “That’s our main objective.”
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