Oregon’s Vin Lananna has no doubt that his men’s team is in ideal shape both mentally and physically to defend its conference title this weekend.
On Wednesday, the first-year head coach stated that his athletes are poised for Saturday and Sunday’s Pacific-10 Conference Championships.
“I feel as though this staff has put together an outstanding group of athletes,” Lananna said. “The athletes are appropriately excited, they’re confident and we’ll see where the chips fall.”
Lananna also stated that the team title is up for grabs this year.
“It may be the closest, on paper, the closest conference meet ever,” Lananna said.
The team standings heading into Saturday have Lananna’s No. 13 Ducks idling in first place thanks to three of his athletes who scored in last weekend’s Pac-10 decathlon. Arizona’s Jake Arnold came away with the
individual title, but Andy Young, Alexey Shkuratov and Brian Bartow combined for Oregon’s 11 team points, one better than Arnold’s 10.
After an outdoor regular season riddled with ups and downs, Oregon’s Galen Rupp is scheduled to run in the 10,000 meters Saturday evening.
Rupp’s health has been the topic of many conversations for Lananna who feels that it’s on the upswing physically and Rupp is capable of emulating last season’s success.
“When you have a great athlete, I don’t think anything is too much to expect,” Lananna said. “I think it’s realistic to expect Galen to go out and try to get as many points as he can.”
Oregon is the favorite to win many of the short races. The Ducks have All-Americans entered into several of these including Matt Scherer (scheduled for the 200, 400), Eric Mitchum (110-meter hurdles, 400 hurdles) and A.K. Ikwuakor (400 hurdles).
All will see action in either the 4×100 or 4×400-meter relays held both days.
Oregon’s biggest competitors will be No. 5 Arizona, No. 17 USC and Washington. The Huskies edged Oregon in April’s Pepsi Team Invitational.
The tightest race may be the 400 hurdles, where Mitchum and Ikwuakor face Shane Charles of Washington. Charles has the fourth-fastest time in the NCAA for this event (50.12 seconds).
In the field, Oregon teammates Tommy Skipper and Jonathan Derby will launch in the pole vault Saturday. With the NCAA’s top mark (19-0) in the event this outdoor season, Skipper is among the nation’s best despite seeing limited action in 2006.
Skipper is still battling a hamstring injury and said that he is at 95 percent.
Skipper’s 19-foot mark is his only clearance this outdoor season. He said that this mark has little relevance to who comes away with first place Saturday.
“You never know who’s going to win,” Skipper said. “I have to respect my competition,”
Skipper isn’t the only top-ranked athlete competing this weekend. Senior All-American and defending NCAA Champion Jesse Williams of USC is on the docket for Sunday’s high jump. Williams leaped to a world-best height of 7-6 1/2 at the Mt. SAC Relays in April.
In the long jump, Washington’s Norris Frederick has the potential to score big. The sophomore from Seattle leads the field this season with a distance of 25-5 1/4.
He’ll face Oregon’s Jordan Kent, who has spent most of this season on the track running sprints.
Kent feels that one of the biggest strengths of this year’s team has been its unity, which carried over after last season’s title run.
“Last year we really needed to come together … and we did a good job at that,” Kent said. “We were able to rely on each other and take that title. We’ve been able to do the same this year.”
Arizona’s Sean Shields is the Pac-10 leader in the shot put. Shields threw 65-1 1/4 at the Arizona International on April 1.
A slew of other Pac-10 throwers are listed in the NCAA top 100 of 2006 for shot put including Colin Veldman of Oregon. Expect to see him in the ring for all three on Saturday and Sunday.
The redshirt junior is No. 17 nationally in the hammer behind a trio of Pac-10 throwers.Shields and Adam Kuehl are Arizona’s twin-threat in the discus. They’re No. 5 and No. 2 in the nation this year, respectively.
The Ducks have the chance to become the first Oregon squad ever to repeat as conference champions since the league expanded to 10 schools in 1979.
Coincidentally, in that same year, coach Bill Dellinger guided Oregon to a Pac-10 title marking the first and only time the program has earned such honors in back-to-back years.
The Ducks have placed first in their conference eight times since the Pac-8 Championships opened in 1965.
For the men, competition starts around 1:45 p.m. both days.