Three weeks ago, after the Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, Oregon women’s track head coach Tom Heinonen was a bit peeved about marks entered for opposing athletes.
According to Heinonen, some entries from other schools may have had marks entered for them that were too high. This forced some of Oregon’s competitors to participate in lower sections of an event.
With the day-long Oregon Invitational taking place Saturday, the same situation could happen again. With such a broad spectrum of athletes coming from schools such as Arizona State and Army, there is no way to verify all the marks that are entered, Heinonen said.
“When you’re on the entering end and you know that people enter bogus marks, you get mad,” he said. “When you’re on the receiving end, you don’t have the time to deal with it.”
Because Oregon coaches and officials are the meet directors, more than verifying marks must go into planning for the Invitational. This doesn’t allow for much fact-checking on other team’s athletes.
“Getting into these relays with a bogus mark is the way a lot of people play the game,” Heinonen said.

Fun with computers, Part 2
Want to know who would win between a matchup of the Oregon women and Stanford? How about the Ducks and Arizona State?
The Web site www.team-power.org ranks collegiate teams based on power points. The Ducks are currently 13th in the country with a point score of 324.8, far behind first-place UCLA (389.34).
The site also allows users to pit school-against-school. If the Ducks were to face-off against the Sun Devils, Arizona State would squeak by Oregon, 99-96.
According to the site, the Ducks would not fare well against the rest of the Pacific-10 Conference. Using each team’s highest marks, UCLA would dominate against Oregon, 127-73, while Washington State would barely win, 103-97.
But have no fear, Duck fans. In a simulation against Washington, the Huskies came out on top, 102-98. In the real thing two weeks ago, the Ducks were the victors, 105-95.

Injury time out
“This is an important meet for us,” Heinonen said of the Oregon Invitational. “There’s solid competition for virtually everybody. In the field events, anything can happen.”
For that reason alone, it is vital for the Duck women to be healthy this weekend. And save for a few bumps, bruises and pulls, Oregon is the healthiest it has been for a while.
Freshman Roslyn Lundeen and sophomore Sarah Malone are both nursing injuries but expect to compete this weekend.
“Obviously, Sarah and Ros are day-to-day,” Heinonen said. “We’re not going to risk anything.”
Heinonen said sophomore C’Rel McAllister and freshman Michelle Donovan, two of the team’s track athletes, are “iffy” and that junior Alicia Snyder-Carlson, another of the team’s runners, has been training in the pool with a sore foot.