Saturday morning, Britney Henry satisfied her taste buds. Saturday afternoon, she satisfied her competitive hunger with her most consistent hammer performance of the outdoor season.
Henry did her part with a second-place finish to add to the Oregon women’s first-place effort in the four-team Pepsi Invitational Saturday. Oregon finished with 183 1/2 points, Kansas State had 165, Washington 151 1/2 and USC 121.
The night before the meet, Henry treated herself to steak and mushrooms at a barbecue at pole vaulter David Moore’s home. She awoke Saturday morning and made herself a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes.
Might this be the new Breakfast of Champions?
“Breakfast of Champions, really,” Henry said. “You got to have good food to make you happy, and food makes me happy.”
USC’s Eva Orban, last year’s Pacific-10 Conference champion in the hammer, set a high precedent with a toss of 218 feet, 9 inches on her second throw. Henry stayed in contention with a throw of 216-05. Orban never threw farther. On Henry’s throw, she screamed as she let the hammer fly and landed at 211-02.
“I thought it went a lot further than it did,” Henry said. “We’re still in the phase of our season where we’re still doing high reps and heavy lifting, so I’m a little bit tired, but that throw felt really good. Hopefully when I’m a rested a little longer that throw will go a little bit farther.”
The series of throws was considered Henry’s most consistent as each went farther than 206.
“It’s been my best series for a long time,” Henry said. “I came today with some good fuel in me.”
“She did really well,” throws coach Lance Deal said. “She did exactly what we were working on. It was a good time to do it and it bodes well for later on in the season.”
Henry’s going to see Orban again this season, first at the Pac-10 Championships and again at the Western Regionals in Eugene.
“Somebody’s out running in front of you, of course you’re going to want to catch them,” Deal said. “We knew that going in and Eva showed up and so did Britney. Britney fell a little bit short this time.”
Oregon built its lead with contributions from the field and running events.
Javelin thrower Rachel Yurkovich set a meet record with a throw of 174-04. Pole vaulter Emily Enders captured the pole vault at 12-09.5.
Rebekah Noble won her second consecutive 1,500, this time winning the race in 4:22.25, following a personal best last weekend at Stanford. Noble and teammate Nicole Blood ran near the front much of the race until the sophomore from Spokane used her trademark kick to win easily at the end.
“It’s fun,” said Noble, who’s done her share of 800s. “It doesn’t last as long as I think it should and so it goes by pretty quick.”
The freshman Blood, one of the nation’s top distance runners during her high school career, ran her first 5,000 since her junior year in high school. Blood and teammate Keara Sammons ran ahead with Zoe Nelson in the early portion of the race. Blood maintained her lead and easily met the regional qualifying standard of 16:52.00 with a 16:39.89 finish. Sammons qualified with a second place finish of 16:42.78.
Blood’s last effort two years ago came in the Junior Nationals.
“I didn’t enjoy it that much,” Blood said. “I like the mile. Twelve and a half laps is a long ways. But at Hayward Field, I’ll go 50 more.”
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