These Oregon women are really starting to believe in themselves.
Over the course of the past two weekends, the youthful Ducks — 33 of the 52 athletes on the squad are underclassmen — came through with three new Pacific-10 Conference Championship qualifying marks and at least six personal bests.
Now they’re getting greedy. Expecting more of themselves, because they say so.
“Everybody knows what they’re capable of and that we need to step up,” said redshirt freshman hurdler Lucretia Larkin, who’s putting together a speedy comeback season, PR-ing last weekend with a Pac-10-quality mark — 14.29 seconds — less than a month after making her first appearance of the season at the Mt. SAC Relays. “All the sprinters are stepping up, the jumpers are stepping up. Everybody is peaking and it’s perfect timing because there’s only a couple meets and then the Pac-10s.”
Oregon athletes get a taste of Pac-10 Championship-like competition today at the Cardinal Invitational at Stanford. And Saturday at the Steve Scott Invitational at UC-Irvine.
And several athletes who won’t compete at those two meets will be representing at the Mt. Hood Open in Gresham on Sunday.
All in all, the increasingly confident Ducks partake in three meets on three days, all with the intent of preparing themselves for the next steps in their respective careers.
“It’s another weekend of preparing for what’s to come,” head coach Tom Heinonen said.
That, logically, means different things for different athletes.
Katie Crabb, the Pac-10’s best 1,500-meter runner (4:19.88), has her sights set high.
“Hopefully it will be all the right conditions for an Olympic Trials qualifying time,” said Crabb, knowing well that the field she’ll be a part of Saturday makes that goal possible.
“I was going through the heat sheet and I was blown away by the athletes that are going to be at this meet … All these women that are world-class. Those people are pretty intimidating to run against, on one hand. But on the other hand, it’s like you have nothing to lose, you just go and you hang on for as long as you can.”
Crabb will be joined at Stanford by eight throwers and three fellow middle distance runners, sophomore Nattalie Wright and freshmen Errin Gulbrandsen and Eri Macdonald, who stole the show at the Oregon Invitational last weekend.
In addition to helping her relay team PR in the 4×400, Macdonald used a spectacular kick to not only catch the seven girls ahead of her but to pass them all and win convincingly. She set a PR with a time of 2:08.62, currently the fourth-best mark in the conference this season.
Macdonald said she was “hoping I could stay with the pack and hopefully kick at the end. I was just thinking about catching up as much as I could.”
“Eri wasn’t a shock,” Heinonen said. “She just showed what she can really do in the right setting. She’s got wheels.”
As do the 11 Duck sprinters and hurdlers, who join their jumping and vaulting teammates in a trip farther south, to the Steve Scott Invitational on Saturday. They’ll make Oregon’s first-ever appearance at the competition, which is expected to be 600 athletes strong.
“The Irvine meet is a ‘Y’all come’ kind of meet,” Heinonen said. “We haven’t been to the meet so we don’t really know what to expect. [But] we’re really looking forward it.
“I believe they arrange it all on the day of the meet, so athletes are well-matched; it’s designed for people to run fast.”
One of the meet’s highlights could likely be the pole vault. The Ducks’ Niki Reed, the current athlete of the week for resetting the school record with a PR of 13-5 1/4, could face UCLA’s duo of Tracy O’Hara and Erica Hoernig, who respectively rank first (14-7 1/4) and second (13-5 1/4) in the conference.
“[Niki’s] getting me comfortable with bigger poles,” Heinonen said. “She’s excited about meeting the UCLA vaulters this week.”
Larkin will compete at Irvine, as will several Ducks who are still in search of Pac-10 qualifying marks. Hurdler Shannae McNairy attempts to improve on last weekend’s seasonal best of 14.29. Endia Abrante and Janette Martin hope to do the same in the 400, while high jumper Jenny Brogdon is also closing in on the conference standard.