The Ducks will have a lot of baggage with them on the plane that will take them to Lincoln, Neb., for their upcoming meet.
Oregon, so far this season, has three NCAA automatic marks, seven NCAA provisionals, and 15 qualifiers for the Pacific-10 Conference Championships — and the Ducks say they haven’t even reached their potential. With only two weeks left before the conference meet, the Ducks still have plenty of time to fully realize their potential.
“There’s a lot more that can be done,” Oregon head coach Tom Heinonen said. “The marks that are yet to come are just more difficult to get.”
Oregon has only two meets before a majority of the squad will travel to Pullman, Wash., for the Pac-10 Championships on May 18 and 19. The conference sets a limit of 24 athletes from each individual school, and Oregon has eclipsed that.
Better yet, the team is still not close to being done. After competing against Nebraska, Kansas State and Wyoming on Saturday in a highly-competitive Quad, the Ducks return to Hayward Field next week for the Oregon Twilight.
If there ever was a road meet, the Quad would be it.
Oregon has traveled east of the Pacific time zone only once during the outdoor season. A majority of the team competed at the Texas Relays in Austin in early April.
“I don’t even know what to expect there,” pole vaulter Becky Holliday said of the Quad. “I think it’s going to be windy. As long as the wind is going in the right direction, I’m excited. I think 14-5 is definitely a possibility.”
The competition the Ducks face should be a good test.
Holliday, now the No. 2 pole vaulter in the nation at 14-1 1/4 — UCLA’s Tracy O’Hara has cleared 14-3 1/4 — may not have a serious competitor, but is still going into each meet looking to better her career best of 14-4.
“I don’t care what the competition is, I’m going to go in thinking this may be Pac-10s,” Holliday said. “It’s the conditions I may have. Whatever it is, I’m just going to do it.”
In the javelin, the Oregon women may be seriously tested.
Perhaps the only other school in the nation to field as strong of a javelin team as the Ducks, Kansas State has three throwers ranked in the top 30 in the nation.
Oregon has sophomore Sarah Malone at No. 2, freshman Elisa Crumley at five, and freshman Roslyn Lundeen at No. 10, an unmatched group. But the Wildcats come close.
Kendra Wecker leads the pack at No. 6, with Austra Skujyte close at nine. Closing out the group is Tabra Alpers at No. 26, one spot behind Oregon junior Charyl Weingarten.
“(Wecker) has huge potential, but she just doesn’t have good coaching right now,” Malone said. “She has horrible form and technique, but she is the most incredible athlete I’ve ever seen. She is just a perfect specimen of a female athlete.”
The biggest test for any one Oregon athlete will go to junior Mary Etter. The Everett, Wash., native will go against some of the best in the nation, and according to Heinonen, should be up to the challenge.
“It’ll be a lot like the Pac-10 Championships in the shot for Mary,” Heinonen said.
Etter is 35th in the nation in the event, and will face off against Skujyte — second in the nation — as well as Nebraska’s Becky Breisch, who is seventh, and Kansas State’s Rebekah Green, the thrower with the 16th best mark.
Etter will also get the chance to compete in the hammer and discus.
All-in-all, the four-way scoring meet will give Oregon a chance to up its marks in anticipation of the Pac-10 Championships and ultimately the NCAA version in Baton Rouge, La., a week later.
However, it will also be about team, as it is the last chance for the Ducks to compete as a whole in a scoring meet this season.
“I’d like to think we’ll see a team effort, but it’s an individual sport,” Heinonen said. “It’s about people striving for their own marks and cheering for their teammates along the way.”
E-mail sports reporter Hank Hager
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