After a successful indoor season that resulted in the women’s team claiming its seventh NCAA Indoor Title in eight years, the Oregon track and field team kicked off its 2017 outdoor campaign on Friday. The distance team, led by the winningest athlete in collegiate history, Edward Cheserek, headed to the Stanford Invitational, while the sprinters, jumpers and throwers traveled to Gainesville, Florida, for the Florida Relays.
Sophomore Alaysha Johnson kicked off the action on Friday with a win in the women’s 100-meter hurdles. She finished in 12.69 seconds. With that time, she broke the Oregon school record, previously set by Sasha Wallace last year when Wallace finished third at the NCAA Championships with a wind-adjusted time of 12.81 seconds. Wallace placed sixth on Friday with a time of 12.94 seconds.
In the long jump, Chaquinn Cook also hit a personal record. She hit a distance of 20 feet, 2 inches. Though she didn’t improve on that distance during the finals, she finished in first, beating out the rest of the field by more than four inches.
Meanwhile, on the west coast, four Oregon women also earned personal records, including redshirt senior Samantha Nadel, who broke her previous PR by more than 10 seconds to win the 5,000-meter in 15:49.26.
In the women’s 1,500-meter, Emma Abrahamson, Jessica Hull and Lilli Burdon all broke their personal records with times of 4:18.62, 4:19.50 and 4:17.07, respectively.
To close out the evening, Cheserek continued his dominance on the track by winning the men’s 10,000-meter at the Stanford Invitational in 28 minutes, 46.48 seconds.
Follow Hannah Bonnie on Twitter @hbonnie03