Southern California sprinter Angela Williams knows how happening Hayward Field can be.
“I love coming here; it’s always been good,” said Williams, who’s made the trek north to Eugene since her days on Southern California youth teams. “That’s just another thing that helps me: I know this track.”
Unfortunately for the Women of Troy, their arch-rivals from UCLA know it too.
Williams’ double in the 100 (11.01 seconds wind-aided) and 200 (22.78, a personal record) meters, and her teammates sweep of the 4×100 and 4×400 relays on a sunny-but-windy Sunday afternoon wasn’t enough to compensate for the Bruins’ late sweep in the pole vault. UCLA’s vaulting corps of Tracy O’Hara (13 feet, 7 inches); Erica Hoernig and Heather Sickler eliminated a possible USC sweep of the Pacific-10 Conference Championship.
The UCLA women took home their fourth title by beating the Women of Troy 167.5-161, while the USC men topped Stanford 154-122.5. Led by its lively distance runners, the Cardinal was on key most of the meet. Literally. Stanford athletes stomped rhythmically in support of one another in the east grandstand all meet long. The Oregon men finished seventh, accumulating 71 points over the course of the two-day meet. The Duck women’s team finished last for the first time in school history, totaling a mere 35 1/2 points.
The fifth-ranked Trojan men were led by the efforts of Felix Sanchez, the nation’s top 400-meter intermediate hurdler, who won the event by more than a second (49.26.10) in addition to anchoring USC’s winning 4×400-relay team.
(clockwise from above) Stanford?s Toby Stevenson breaks a 22-year-old Pac-10 record in the pole vault. USC?s Felix Sanchez focuses before capturing the 400 meter hurdles title. Angela Williams pulls off the double
The Trojans’ other stars included hammer throwers Norbert Horvath (230-4), Dagan Massey (206-02), Maroti Szabolcs (204-01) and Lucais Mackay (201-01) who finished 1-2-3-4 in the event.
Trojan Dennis Kholev was second in the pole vault — behind Stanford’s Toby Stevenson, who set a Pac-10 Championship Meet record with his leap of 18-09.25.
And in the high jump, USC’s Jeff Trepagnier leapt 7-1 and into second behind the Ducks’ Jason Boness, who was the brightest spot for the Ducks on the weekend.
Boness was the only of three Oregon athletes ranked No. 1 in the conference heading into the competition who lived up to his billing, as he cleared 7-5. The mark is a PR, an Oregon record, an Olympic Trials qualifier and 10 points for the Ducks.
“I qualified for trials last year, so that’s not a big deal,” Boness told a crowd of reporters hovered above him. “At a championship meet like this, it’s more the 10 points than anything.”
On the women’s side, Seilala Sua single-handedly contributed 28 points to the Bruins win. The Pac-10’s most dominant female field athlete won the discus (205-01) on Sunday and the shot put (56-09 1/2) Saturday, hours after placing second in the javelin (148-01).
Other UCLA highlights were Darnesha Griffith winning her first conference title in the high jump (5-10), Michelle Perry winning the 100-meter hurdles (13.03) and Christina Tolson taking the hammer throw (208-5).
