The heart of track season is finally upon us in Track Town USA.
The season has crept up on Oregon like a ghost in the night with the Texas Relays beginning today.
The Oregon women’s track and field team is going full steam ahead with records already being broken. The Ducks have a long list of senior athletes who will anchor Oregon’s veteran squad in the jumps and throws.
The team, which includes six returning NCAA participants and three Pac-10 runners-up from last season, has already begun to propel the excitement that is Oregon track and field.
It will be a season to remember as legendary head coach Tom Heinonen is set to leave his final mark on the program, as the men’s and women’s teams will merge in 2004.
Heinonen is wrapping up an unprecedented career in his 27th season as the only head coach to win multiple NCAA titles in track and field and cross country, along with many other career highlights.
Eight of Oregon’s 11 athletes competing in Texas are seniors, with the veteran leadership of the squad primarily in the jumps and throws.
The throwing duo of seniors Mary Etter and Jordan Sauvage will lead Oregon at Mike A. Myers Stadium and, the Ducks hope, to a solid regional performance in May.
Etter anchors the team as a two-time All-American and four-time Pac-10 scorer in her final season. The Washington native ranks in the top five all-time at Oregon in the hammer, discus and shot put.
Etter has posted season bests of 169 feet, 7 inches in the discus and 167-8 in the hammer, yet both marks are almost 10 feet shy of her career bests.
Sauvage will lead Oregon in the hammer, as she just broke the school record at the Stanford Invitational with a mark of 188-3. She also will back Etter in the discus with a season best of 147-3.
Oregon’s pole vaulting trio of redshirt seniors Becky Holliday and Niki McEwen and junior Kirsten Riley will also be on hand in Texas.
Holliday won the vault last year in Texas while receiving an NCAA automatic bid at 13-7 1/4. In her 2003 campaign, Holliday has vaulted 14-3 1/4 indoors, while continuing her assault on the record books.
McEwen trails Holliday by just two inches in her personal best above 14 feet. McEwen is a three-time All-American, yet she no-heighted in last week’s Stanford competition.
Riley has a personal best of 13-5 1/2 indoors this season with an outdoor best of 12-11 3/4. The Eugene native set her outdoor mark at Stanford, upping her personal best by almost two inches.
Oregon’s depth in the javelin holds true to tradition and the javelin throwers should host a class of national talent and rankings all season long. All-American Sarah Malone may redshirt the season, although she is as yet undecided and will not compete in Texas.
Seniors Jenny Brogdon and Amanda Brown will also lead Oregon in the high jump and triple jump, respectively. Brogdon, the three-time Pac-10 qualifier has jumped 5-7 in 2003, with an all-time best of 5-9 1/4.
Brown is expected to lead the squad in horizontal jumps in her final season with a personal best of 40-8 3/4. Sophomore Clarice Hayward-Lee will also give depth, as she has leaped 39-2 1/2.
As for the track side, sprints look to be anchored by senior Janette Davis, who missed last year’s NCAA provisional mark in the 400 by less than one second.
In distances, senior Eri Macdonald will lead the way in the 800 after missing last year’s NCAA invite by .03 seconds. Senior Carrie Zografos holds the school record in the steeple chase after finishing cross country as an All-American.
Oregon finished the outdoor season last year in 27th, the best placing since 1995. The Pacific-10 Conference is as heated as ever as UCLA and USC finished in the top three at last year’s NCAA Championships.
With a talented and deep squad, and a coach who knows the ropes better than any, Oregon women’s track hopes to do big things in 2003.