After spending most of the outdoor season compensating for injury, Oregon’s A.K. Ikwuakor says he’s finally ready to run with confidence.
The healthy Ikwuakor will run tonight at the Oregon Twilight.
“When I got injured, it took away a lot of my confidence,” Ikwuakor said. “I wasn’t running as fast I did last year.
“The injury was more of a psychological thing than a physical thing. I feel stronger now with Pac-10s coming up. I’m not in top form, but I’m at 90 percent physically and mentally.”
For Oregon, tonight’s meets mark the close of regular-season competition before the Pacific-10 Conference Championships.
Ikwuakor is slated for the 400-meter hurdles, an event he had trouble with two weeks ago at the Oregon Invitational. The senior from Arvada, Colo., finished ninth.
“I just wasn’t getting my steps right. To say I was slightly off is an understatement,” he said with a smile. “I’m much more confident now. I was hitting my steps for the first time in a while yesterday.”
Aside from the 400 hurdles, Ikwuakor will also run the 110 hurdles.
Ikwuakor’s season got brighter last weekend at the Penn Relays. Although he sat out the 400 meters because of back problems, he helped the 4×400-meter relay team clock its first regional qualifying mark of this season (3 minutes, 8.82 seconds).
On Thursday, Ikwuakor said he was pleased that the relay team, which set a school record last year, now has a regional mark despite earning it this late in the season.
“We got our confidence back at Penn,” Ikwuakor said. “It’s funny to talk about regional qualifying now. … Last year regional qualifying was not an option; it was done by now. Penn helped us realize that we’re still that team.”
Teammate Jordan Kent ran a leg of that 4×400. He will also compete today. Kent hopes to improve his lane assignment for the Pac-10 Championships next weekend.
“I’m just trying to get in shape. This is kind of a workout,” he said referring to the Twilight. “I’m going to take my events as hard as I can and try to build endurance.”
Well-rested Kent is happy to have spring football behind him. The junior two-time All-American got through drills without injury, save for a jammed finger.
“It’s been nice having a few days off,” Kent said. “The bruises and bumps have gone away. … I’m ready to focus now just on preparing for Pac-10s.”
Kent said it’s hard for him and his teammates not to look ahead to the conference finals because they’re excited.
“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t win,” Kent said about the Pac-10s. “This is a great opportunity to win at home and in front of our fans.”
Tentative track entries for Oregon include Travis Anderson in the 200, Chris Winter in the steeplechase plus a slew of young and older runners in the 1,500 and 5,000. Vertin Alvarez, Carlos Trujillo and Patrick Werhane are scheduled to run both events.
In the field, Keegan Burnett and David Moore will launch in the pole vault. Jonathan Derby has the night off to rest for the weekend’s Pac-10 decathlon.
Senior Jeff Lindsey will compete in the high jump for the final Oregon Twilight of his career.
Three Oregon freshmen are reserved for the long jump.
Redshirt junior Colin Veldman is set to throw both the hammer and discus. Mark Lewis and Ian Reynoso will be in the ring for the shot put, and Ryan Brandel and Matthew Maloney are penciled-in for the javelin.
For coach Vin Lananna’s decathletes, the wait is over for the championship portion of the season. The decathlon segment of the Pac-10 Conference finals opens Saturday.
The hosting Ducks have five men entered including team co-captain Andy Young.
The redshirt senior took second at last year’s Pac-10s, where his score of 7,165 earned him the third top-five finish of his career.
He leads a talented group of Ducks that Lananna hopes will give his squad an early edge heading into next week’s portion of the Pac-10s.
“The field is wide open in the decathlon,” Lananna said. “For the men, it is extremely important that they score this weekend and keep things close.
“There are four schools with a legitimate chance to win this thing so this weekend’s scoring is very important to us.”
Scoring in the decathlon was critical for the Ducks at last year’s Pac-10 finals. Young earned eight team points, but it was the added five from teammate Cody Fleming that gave Oregon first place overall in the event en route to the school’s fifth conference title.
Young enters this weekend with three weeks of rest behind him. He last saw action at the Mount SAC Relays April 13-14. Young struggled to an 11th-place finish in the decathlon, but took first in the 1,500.
Young attributed some of his hardships to the layout of the meet.
“We had hours in between different events,” Young said the following week. “My goal now is to rest up and get ready for Pac-10s.”
Fleming will also be competing this weekend fresh off his third-place effort at the Oregon Invitational two weeks ago. Joining he and Young are Alexey Shkuratov Brian Bartow and Derby, the pole-vault specialist.
Lananna said that his leading pole vaulter Tommy Skipper lobbied for a spot in the decathlon, but the first-year coach decided against it. Skipper won the 2004 Pac-10 decathlon as a freshman.
The Oregon fivesome faces eight other Pac-10 decathletes in a field of 13. Arizona’s Robert Arnold is one of the favorites to win. The junior from Santa Rosa, Calif., placed sixth at the 2005 Pac-10 finals and holds the top score (7,470) in the field this season.
The twilight starts this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. Day one of the decathlon is scheduled to begin at noon on Saturday. It concludes Sunday starting at 12:15 p.m.
