Hayward Field has seen snow, rain, sleet and the occasional ray of sun so far this season.
There was no snow or sleet, but the rains came in full force Saturday at the fabled track facility. But that didn’t matter much to the Oregon women’s track and field team.
Washington attempted to overtake the Ducks, but Oregon, with wins in nine individual events, won the dual meet, 105-95.
As expected, Oregon dominated the field events, but also saw the track portion of the dual meet come through with impressive times.
Junior Eri Macdonald pulled the Hayward crowd to its feet as she overtook Washington’s Courtney Inman in the last 100 feet of the 800-meter run. She set a personal best with a time of 2:06.37 and now stands seventh in the event in Oregon’s all-time record book.
Macdonald’s win led the track portion of the day for the Oregon squad, with freshman Nikki Ferguson placing third in the 100 with a time of 12.80 and freshman Michelle Donovan earning a personal record in the 400 (57.69).
Later on, Oregon’s 4×100 relay team was ruled to have won the event after Washington was disqualified for an illegal hand-off in the third turn.
Following that, the 4×400 squad — featuring Macdonald, Donovan, senior Jenny Kenyon and junior Becky Holliday — squeaked out a win at 3:47.05.
Rounding out the day for the Ducks’ track squad, Carrie Zografos made school history and earned an NCAA provisional mark.
The junior came from behind to win the steeplechase at 10:42.02. She now ranks first in Oregon history in the event.
“We knew we would have to rely heavily on the field events,” Oregon head coach Tom Heinonen said. “Eri’s win was important to slow them some, and we needed our field event athletes to keep piling up the points through the end.”
Heinonen’s expectations did not fall on deaf ears, as the Ducks sent the Huskies home with virtually a bare cupboard of victories in the field events. Sophomore Sarah Malone started off the day by taking first in the javelin throw at 158-feet but was far off her mark of 179-2 a week ago. She edged out teammate Elisa Crumley, whose best throw was 157-04.
As most had feared would happen, the rains made for slippery conditions and played a part in the lower scores. However, the Ducks didn’t use this as an excuse.
“I’m not going to blame it on the weather, because we’re used to this, but we’re kind of using this meet as a way to pretty much go out there and dominate in the javelin,” Malone said. “It’s kind of, I don’t want to say ‘laid back’ because you always want to be in a competitive mode, but just something that we’re going to train through. I wish I would have done better, because it always sucks when you don’t perform well, but for the conditions, you couldn’t expect much more.”
Right after Malone took first in the javelin, juniors Mary Etter and Jordan Sauvage battled for first in the hammer throw, with Sauvage coming out on top at 170-07. Etter finished second at 166-09, but would later win in the discus (164-04), and place behind Washington’s Searan Salibian for second in the shot put (44-04).
Junior Amanda Brown contributed heavily for the Ducks, claiming a personal best in the triple jump (38-10 1/4) and second in the long jump (17-8).
Holliday earned her first mark in the pole vault at Hayward Field this season at 13-05.25, matching the NCAA automatic height.
With most of the 2,603 in attendance on their feet, Holliday missed three consecutive attempts at 14-2. Had she cleared the height, it would have been two inches below her personal record.
Holliday finished up her day by taking third in the 200 (25.33) and contributing in the 4×400.
“I have one thing I need to do: turn earlier,” she said. “I’m hitting on my way up, and if I turned earlier, I’d have 14-6 clearance easy. It’s just that I’m not doing this one adjustment that I need to make.”
Said Heinonen of Holliday’s day: “I liked that Becky was willing to come back after the pole vault and run the 200 and 4×400. That shows a lot of heart.”
E-mail sports reporter Hank Hager
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