The men and women of Oregon returned for the third time this season to the Dempsey Indoor Facility in Seattle. This time it was for the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Indoor Championships, a final tune-up race for the Indoor Championships.
“Pretty good weekend overall,” head coach Robert Johnson told GoDucks.com. “We were able to sneak a few more people in (to the top 16) and now we have to declare and see what happens with those kids that are on the bubble. I liked the way we competed, but we still have some things to work out and hopefully we have them figured out here in the next two weeks before we head off to College Station.”
In order to qualify for the championship meet, an athlete must be in the top 16 individual times in the nation. You can view the top times of the NCAA Division-I athletes here.
Redshirt sophomore Jessica Hull broke the women’s indoor record in the mile by running four minutes and 31 seconds to take second place. Lilli Burdon also ran alongside Hull to finish third in 4:32.30. Both of them are already qualified in the 3,000 meter.
Alaysha Johnson ran her best time of the season in the 60-meter hurdles, finishing in 8.03 seconds, which was good for second place. Freshman Shae Anderson ran 52.83 seconds in the 400-meter. Her new personal best is now fifth on the Oregon indoor all-time list
For the men, James West unleashed a good finishing kick against a talented field to finish second place in the mile; his 4:02.70 was a season best. Freshman Cooper Teare just missed qualifying for the sixteenth qualify spot in the 3,000-meters. His 7:56.43 time was good for second place.
The next meet is when all the weeks of training pays off for Oregon. The Ducks will fly to College Station, Texas, the home of Texas A&M on March 9 to complete in the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Follow August Howell on Twitter @howell_august