Come rain, wind or shine, Oregon’s Matt Scherer continues sprinting to personal and conference marks week in and week out.
At the gusty High Performance portion of the Oregon Invitational Saturday, the senior Illinois product ran a tour de force 45.9 seconds in the 400-meter. He took first place in the event and beat second-place finisher Charles Lewis of Long Beach State by almost three seconds. Scherer’s time ranks sixth in the nation for this outdoor season.
Scherer was content with his new season-best time, which he achieved while Hayward Field was battered by winds of up to 20 mph all day Saturday.
“I feel like I’m in the best shape I’ve been in for a really long time … I’m extremely pleased,” Scherer said.
It wasn’t the only action he saw Saturday. Scherer’s 400 was sandwiched between running the second legs of the 4×100-meter
relay and the 4×400 relay. Both teams took first with respective times of 41.18 and 3:13.23.
Scherer said that he had little trouble battling with the wind in the 4×100.
“It didn’t really bother me. I didn’t really think about it,” Scherer said.
Oregon coach Vin Lananna was equally pleased with how Scherer and his other athletes competed at Lananna’s first Oregon Invitational since coming to Eugene.
“The meet was really a great success from a lot of spots,” Lananna said. “It was a good and entertaining event … Scherer was excellent, impressive, very impressive.”
For the first time this outdoor season at Hayward Field, no Duck took first in a men’s hurdles event.
Senior All-American Eric Mitchum came close. He finished three tenths of a second behind former All-American David Oliver (13.45) in the 110-meter hurdles. It marked the third defeat of Mitchum’s collegiate career in the event at home.
In between gasps, Mitchum and Oliver joked with each other after the race.
“Damn you,” Mitchum yelled in good spirit to Oliver while walking off the track.
Oliver, who ran unattached, was flown in to Eugene from Orlando, Fla., by the Oregon coaching staff to challenge Mitchum. It was the first time the 2004 Howard University graduate set foot in the Pacific Northwest.
“Mitchum kept the competition going, I’m happy for that … I’m really happy with what happened today,” Oliver said.
The race was not the first time Oliver has competed in sub-60 degree weather. He ran track in high school in Denver.
Oliver will be competing next week in Senegal, Africa.
In other men’s hurdles action, Sean Williams (52.14) ran
unattached in the 400 hurdles and took first place. Oregon’s Akobundu Ikwuakor (14.13) finished sixth in the 110 hurdles. Teammate Michael McGrath ran to a 14th-place finish in the 800.
At dusk, the remainder of the meet-record 6,389 fans saw Oregon’s Galen Rupp compete in the Bill
McChesney Jr. Memorial Mile. The sophomore from Portland struggled late and couldn’t keep pace with the front runners. He ended with an 11th-place time of 4:15.63.
Rupp has seen limited action this outdoor season due to illness. At the Pepsi Team Invitational two weeks ago, he did not finish the 5,000 and sat out the Trojan Invitational on March 25.
After Saturday’s mile, he said that he’s getting better and that the invite was not just practice for him.
“There’s no warm-up about it,” Rupp said in reference to his performance. “It’s frustrating, it’s just frustrating.”
Lananna commented on Rupp’s health after the meet.
“Galen is a tremendous athlete and when he’s struggling, we all struggle with him.”
Fellow distance runner Carlos Trujillo of the Ducks finished first in the 1,500 B section. His time of 3:55.17 edged second-place finisher Sean Williams (3:55.65).
In field events, Oregon’s Colin Veldman took third in the hammer on Friday. He declined to throw in the shot put, but finished second in the discus. He held a first-place lead in the event with a toss of 171-1 until David Paul of Eastern Washington heaved 174 feet, one inch to take the event.
On Saturday morning, Veldman’s teammates Mark Lewis and Steven Johnson threw to first-place finishes in the B sections of the shot put and discus, respectively.
In the triple jump B section, Matthew Welch of the Ducks took second with a height of a wind-aided 43-1.
Teammate Jonathan Derby launched to 16-6 3/4 in the Valley River pole vault, good for fifth place. Three-time national champion Tommy Skipper did not compete in this event.
The Ducks’ Matthew Maloney won the javelin with a throw of 224-11, landing the freshman seventh on the all-time Oregon list.
The decathlon portion of the invite ended Friday afternoon with Team XO’s Tyler May in first. May’s score of 7,161 points topped second-place
finisher Ben Roland of Wisconsin (6,990) by 171. Oregon’s Cody Fleming (6,901) followed in third. Teammate Alexey Shkuratov (6,585) finished fifth.
The Oregon men are on the road this weekend in Philadelphia for the Penn Relays. They will also compete in Stanford, Calif., at the Cardinal Invitational on Sunday.

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