Two Ducks came within one second of breaking the four-minute mile barrier at Saturday’s Husky Classic in Seattle, settling instead for regional qualifying marks. Freshman Matt Centrowitz passed most of the field in the final lap, finishing fourth in 4:00.26, just off of the NCAA automatic qualifying standard of 3:59.50. Senior Michael McGrath, who ran a sub-4 mile at Washington’s Dempsey Indoor facility last year, was sixth in 4:00.61.
Centrowitz just missed joining his father as an Oregon sub-4 miler. Matt Centrowitz Sr. ran 3:59.2 for the Ducks in 1975.
Other top performances came from A.J. Acosta, Scott Wall and Kenny Klotz. Acosta, racing the 3,000m, finished ninth in 7:57.45, improving his provisional qualifying time. Wall and Klotz ran the 5,000m, finishing fourth (13:58.22) and 13th (14:05.30), respectively, both meeting the provisional standard. Klotz improved his time from the 14:06. 34 that he ran at the UW Invitational two weeks ago.
No other Ducks met the qualifying standard in Seattle, but some came close. Derrick Jones finished seventh in the 60m in 6.80 seconds, after just missing the provisional mark of 6.74 by running 6.77 in the preliminary heats. Former Duck and current Kansas City Chiefs receiver Samie Parker, the school record holder in the event at 6.62, was 14th in 6.90.
Zoe Nelson’s 9:39.56 in the 3,000m was less than six seconds away from the provisional standard of 9:34.00.
Both the men’s and women’s 4x400m relay teams brought home provisional qualifying times from the Tyson Invitational, held over the weekend in Fayetteville, Ark., the NCAA indoor championships host. Phil Alexander, Chad Barlow and Jamesha Youngblood also met the provisional standard.
The men’s relay team won its race in 3:09.11, with Alexander and Marcus Dillon holding off challenges from Florida State and TCU runners.
“The whole point for the men to go was for the 4×400,” associate head coach Dan Steele said in a media release. “They competed really well in a very competitive race. It was a very intelligent race. They all made the right moves at the right times.”
The women’s team won its heat and was third in 3:38.56, just behind Western Michigan and Mississippi.
Alexander moved into third place on the school 400m list with his preliminary-round time of 46.96, then finished fourth in the final in 47.58. Barlow, 11th in the preliminaries in 47.24, just snuck under the provisional standard of 47.25.
Youngblood, a freshman, moved into second on the indoor long jump list with a leap of 20 feet 2 1/4 inches, a jump that also netted her a provisional mark.
Mandy White, another freshman, reset her school record in the 60m, dropping it from 7.75 to 7.72 seconds.
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