The next stage of the championship season hits Eugene this weekend with the NCAA West Region Championships.
Oregon’s top women’s track and field athletes are competing at the two-day event at Hayward Field for the chance to earn an invitation to the NCAA Championships in two weeks in Sacramento, Calif.
Events begin Friday at 1 p.m. and continue through Saturday afternoon.
Distance runner Zoe Nelson ran season best times in the 5,000 and 10,000-meter races at Pacific-10 Championships and says she’s optimistic about this weekend.
“It should be fun,” Nelson said. “The season is moving in a positive direction as it should towards the end so I’m excited to see what can happen.”
Her 5,000m time of 16 minutes, 50.42 seconds also gave her a regional qualifying time, a bonus in her eyes.
“I think some of my races so far this season haven’t been quite up to par with what I’ve been expecting of myself so it was nice to have Pac-10s where all that really matters is scoring points for your team,” Nelson said.
The second season in an Oregon uniform has been smoother, she says, having more experience, being more grounded and understanding what to expect at different meets.
The 4×400 relay team gets another chance to showcase its potential after finishing last in the Pac-10 Championships May 12-13 in 3:54.45.
“It was just kind of one of those freak accidents,” Leah Worthen said. “(Kavina Hall) was running and her knee bounced the baton out of her hand so she’s scrambling to get the baton and start running again.”
By the time she got the baton and scrambled back into the race, Oregon was 15 yards behind the rest of the pack, but Worthen said she took pride in the fact that they finished the race.
Oregon’s relay team ran without Rebekah Noble, who sat out the weekend with tight hamstrings. The Ducks went instead with Hall, Worthen, Irie Searcy and Keshia Baker.
“We all saw that as a good weekend for her to just recover from her injury,” Worthen said of Noble. “She doesn’t need to push. The team wasn’t in a place to really compete with the top contenders anyhow so we just want her to get healthy.”
The last time the full relay team ran together was the Pepsi Invitational when they earned a season best time of 46.53. Worthen is confident though that Oregon can be a contender for the NCAA Championships in Sacramento from Wednesday-Saturday, June 6-9.
“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be at the NCAAs,” she said.
Worthen, who has spent much of the second half of the Oregon track season experimenting with the 400-hurdles, competed in the event at Pac-10s and advanced from the preliminaries with a time of 1 minute, 2.10 seconds, and two seconds off the regional qualifying time of 1:00.82.
The next day, Worthen again ran ninth, this time in 1:05.48.
“Everyone in the Pac-10 finals of the hurdles made regional qualifying. If I wouldn’t have fell, I would have been right in there,” Worthen said. “I had a step on the two girls right next to me so I know I had the regional qualifying (time), I just fell on the last hurdle.”
Worthen says she’ll continue to train this summer in the 400 as her base and continue hurdles again next year.
“The hurdles were a good experience,” Worthen said. “I just kind of had to deal with some blows to my ego and falling in front of a bunch of people, but I’m completely over that and excited for a new event and something that I can just contribute more to the team.”
Oregon had the last weekend off, which allowed Worthen to recover physically and mentally, but also gave her the opportunity to watch her sister Alison compete in the high school state track meet at Hayward Field. Her younger sister won the 300 hurdles and high jump.
“I was really nervous for her and excited for her at the same time,” Leah Worthen said. “It was a lot of fun to be able to watch her in all her excitement after her races and stuff.”
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