It’s time to put up or shut up for several members of the Oregon men’s track and field team.
With competition in the NCAA West Regional Qualifier beginning today in Northridge, Calif., the chance has arrived for a Duck athlete to earn a ticket to the National Championships with a top-five finish in his respective event.
If an athlete fails to crack the top five, however, this sunny weekend in California could mark the end of the 2004 season.
Senior Brandon Holliday, a 2003 NCAA Qualifier in the 400-meter hurdles, is one such athlete who faces a do-or-die scenario. He enters the meet with the fourth-best time in the West (50.52 seconds), but only ranks 14th nationally. If he fails to finish in the top five this weekend, he is likely too far down the descending-order list to receive an at-large bid.
The Beaverton native, who is coming off a fourth-place finish at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, said while his Oregon career has had some bright moments, it wouldn’t be complete without another trip to nationals.
“I’d hate for my career to end at regionals,” Holliday said. “I want to go to nationals. One of my goals is still to be All-American, and in order to do that, I need to crack the top five. If I didn’t make the top five, it wouldn’t have been a terrible career, but it wouldn’t be a good way to end it. I would be crushed if I didn’t go to nationals this year.”
Another Oregon athlete facing similar circumstances is Leonidas Watson. The junior transfer from St. Louis Community College will compete in the long jump and the triple jump for Oregon, but has some work to do in order to qualify for the latter.
Watson ranks fourth in the West in the long jump
(25 feet, 4 1/2 inches) and seventh in the triple jump (51-5). Holding ground in the long jump will be enough to advance, but he will likely need to add three inches in the triple jump to secure a spot at nationals.
Coming off a sore knee and what he called a “poor” performance at the Pac-10 Championships, Watson said he’s determined to qualify in both events.
“I didn’t feel like I had a good workout going into Pac-10s,” Watson said. “I was resting, trying to be injury-free before Pac-10s. Now that I’m not worried about injures, I’ve been working hard.”
Two Oregon athletes who have an easier path to nationals are Tommy Skipper and Eric Mitchum.
Skipper automatically qualified for nationals when he cleared 18-8 3/4 during an indoor meet in Nampa, Idaho, in early February. This clearance was also a school record for Skipper, breaking Kory Tarpenning’s 19-year-old mark of 18-6 1/2. The Sandy native holds the second-best outdoor height in the West (18-3 1/4) behind Fullerton State’s Giovanni Lanaro, but has repeatedly said he’s more concerned with improving his technique at regionals, rather than winning.
Mitchum owns the nation’s second-best time in the 110-meter hurdles (13.50) and would almost certainly be selected for an at-large bid if he were to falter at regionals.
Other Oregon athletes who enter weekend competition ranked in the West’s top five include: Matt Scherer in the 400 (fifth, 45.95), Brett Holts in the 3,000 steeplechase (fifth, 8:44.57), Ryan Andrus in the 10,000 (fifth, 28:56.67), Jeff Lindsey in the high jump (fourth, 7-1 3/4), Adam Jenkins in the javelin (fifth, 227-4) and the 4×400 relay team of Travis Anderson, Holliday, Kedar Inico and Scherer (third, 3:03.49).