On Saturday at Hayward Field, Oregon men’s track and field proved that yes, Eugene is still Track Town, and yes, the Ducks still know their way around a track.
Doubters who thought that injuries to stars John Stiegeler and Santiago Lorenzo would ruin Oregon’s season were silenced when the Ducks won points from all sorts of unlikely places, knocking off Washington 117-81 in a dual meet Saturday.
Oregon athletes notched 18 personal bests and won 14 of the meet’s 19 events en route to the blowout victory over the Huskies.
“These guys really stepped it up today,” Oregon head coach Martin Smith said. “We’ve had a rough week, but I was proud of how the kids came together.”
The most impressive individual mark of the meet came from pole vaulter Trevor Woods, who joined the elite “18-foot club” in dramatic fashion. With the large home crowd rocking, sophomore Woods hit his jump at 18 feet, 1/2 inch to move into fourth place all-time at Oregon and third nationally this season.
“If you’re an 18-foot vaulter, you’re an elite vaulter,” an elated Woods said.
Despite his excitement over the mark, Woods was more excited about the team’s victory.
“This proves that, as a team, we can still go out and get marks,” Woods said. “We believe that as a team we can win Pac-10s. Easily.”
Junior Adam Kriz joined Woods in leading Oregon’s dominance in the field events Saturday. Kriz notched an NCAA provisional mark in the hammer, the first event of the day, with a toss of
207-8. That throw beat his previous personal best by 10 feet. Later, Kriz scored personal bests in the shot put and the discus.
On the track, the Ducks were led by the fleet feet of Brandon Holliday and Micah Harris. Holliday won a dramatic 400-meter hurdles race with a time that came .09 seconds short of the NCAA provisional mark and put him ninth on the all-time Oregon list.
“I was so nervous coming in today, just because this is one of the biggest meets we have all season,” Holliday said. “We have to protect our home court.”
Harris won both the 200 and the 110 hurdles with solid times. He also ran on the 4×100 relay team, which featured football players Allan Amundson and Samie Parker. The Ducks ran the fourth-best time in the Pacific-10 Conference this season, a 40.77.
In other track action, NCAA qualifier Simon Kimata returned to race despite an injury to his Achilles tendon. Kimata started strong in the 1,500, but faded on the last lap; he ran a similar race in the 800, normally his best event.
“Coach (Steve) Silvey wanted to do that, he wanted to run (Kimata) in the 1,500 and then run him in the 800 with only a little rest,” Smith said. “Obviously, neither race was very pretty.”
Another Oregon NCAA qualifier, sophomore Jason Hartmann, did not compete in the dual because his best event, the 10,000, was not featured at the short meet.
Coach Smith was happy with the balance he saw in his team Saturday.
“To borrow a football analogy, the offense really picked up the defense today, and the other way around,” Smith said, referring to the differences between the track athletes and the field athletes.
The Ducks will travel to California for the Mt. San Antonio College Relays next week. The meet starts Friday and runs through Sunday.