Friday and Saturday proved difficult for track athletes of all shapes, sizes and events at the Oregon Relays. A bitter, blowing wind and low temperatures, with rain dampening parts of Saturday’s action, made track conditions tough and spectators bundled from head to toe. The Oregon men and women tolerated the weather long enough to post multiple qualifying marks for the NCAA West Regional – and make another dent in the school record books as well.
Junior Ashton Eaton and redshirt senior Kalindra McFadden recorded their NCAA automatic qualifying marks in the decathlon and heptathlon, respectively, over Thursday and Friday afternoons. Eaton’s 8,023 points, scored with personal bests in the 110m hurdles, the discus and the javelin, are the most recorded by any NCAA decathlete this year. McFadden scored 154 points higher than her personal-best heptathlon performance for a 5,582 points, the fourth-highest NCAA mark.
Sophomore Brianne Theisen dropped out of the heptathlon after being initially entered, but she provided some fireworks of her own in the women’s long jump, winning the event with a personal-best leap of 20 feet, 3 inches in illegal (2.5 meters per second) wind. A legal wind would have cemented Theisen’s jump as the seventh-longest in school history.
Later that night, junior Andrew Wheating kick-started a series of exciting distance races that invigorated the crowd of 6,228. Second in the 1,500m race entering the bell lap, Wheating passed Kris Gauson of Butler and Kevin Hicks of Oregon Track Club Elite to win the race in 3:40.92, a regional qualifying mark and the second-best mark by a collegian this season.
“I was really nervous just for the start of it. I settled in, and got really comfortable,” Wheating said. “For the first 1,500 of the season, I think it’s definitely a good start.”
Wheating later utilized his patented kick to win the 800m in 1:47.66, over a second faster than his UCLA dual meet qualifying mark. Whether he doubles up in the 800m and 1,500m again in a late-season meet is unknown, but his times offer significant promise in both events.
“I haven’t done that kind of double in, I don’t know, forever,” he said. “I’m pretty happy knowing I’ve got the strength to go (800m) and (1,500m) back-to-back.”
The Bill McChesney Memorial 5,000m saw senior Shadrack Biwott enter the school’s all-time top-10 list in that race. Neck and neck with OTC Elite’s Josh Rohatinsky entering the final 200m, Biwott outsprinted Rohatinsky to win in 13:36.25, a personal best.
Biwott’s time is fifth-best among collegians this season and eighth-best in school history, just behind Jim Hill’s 1980 mark of 13:37.49. Only three of the current top 10 marks in the men’s 5,000m were set after 1982.
“I’m humbled for sure. It’s nice being with those men of Oregon,” Biwott said. “It’s an honor for me.”
Oregon’s Matthew Centrowitz posted a career-best 13:49.15 for third place in the 5,000m, a regional qualifying time.
The men’s 10,000m was the last event of Friday night, and senior Galen Rupp and freshman Luke Puskedra dazzled the crowd en route to two more qualifying marks. Rupp won the race in 28:28.68, while Puskedra finished second in 28:34.17, sixth on the Oregon all-time list.
“The goal was to get both Luke and I qualified, and we did that relatively easy,” Rupp said. “It’s hard, I’m still getting back into training, so I’m still getting used to the mileage, but I felt good.”
Saturday’s greatest highlight came in the women’s 4x400m relay, as Keshia Baker, Amber Purvis, Leah Worthen and Jamesha Youngblood won in 3:39.23, breaking Athletics West’s 25-year-old meet record. The mark missed Oregon’s top-10 list in the event by .28 seconds.
Other notable performances
Oregon junior Cyrus Hostetler won the javelin with the second-best throw of his career, a toss of 261 feet, 11 inches on his first attempt. Senior Rachel Yurkovich won the women’s javelin for the Ducks with a throw of 186 feet, 5 inches.
Beijing Olympian Loree Smith, who lives and trains in Eugene, convincingly won the women’s hammer throw Friday, while Boaz Lalang of Kenya, representing adidas, won the men’s mile Saturday in 4:01.59.
Kellie Schueler, a junior at Summit High School in Bend, swept the high school girls’ 100m, 200m and 400m in leading Summit to the high school division overall victory. Team scores added up both boys’ and girls’ events.
Paige Rice, a seventh-grader at West Sylvan Middle School in Portland, finished second in the women’s 1,500m “B” section, in which all other runners were collegians. Rice crossed the finish line in 4:36.70.
Colorado’s Jenny Barringer, a Beijing Olympian in the 3,000m steeplechase and the American record holder in that event, competed in the 1,500m and 800m at Hayward Field. Barringer won the 1,500m in 4:08.41- a meet record and the best mark in the world thus far – and the 800m in a personal-best 2:05.43, outlasting Oregon’s Zoe Buckman.
Oregon’s Rebekah Noble, running unattached, and Jordan McNamara, wearing an Oregon singlet, acted as pace-setters in the women’s 1,500m “B” section and the men’s 1,500m, respectively. It is unclear whether either will compete for the Ducks later this season.
[email protected]
Despite stormy weather, Oregon has record-breaking weekend
Daily Emerald
April 25, 2009
More to Discover