Fifth place is as good as first place. Team score carries no weight. Do your job, run your race, maintain your focus. Survive and advance.
The men of Oregon fulfilled these simple aphorisms during the NCAA track and field West Regional this weekend at Hayward Field, qualifying 12 men in seven events for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. on June 10-13. All top-five finishers in event finals qualified in that respective event for the outdoor national championships.
“I think we accomplished what we needed to get accomplished. Our approach was to look at this as the first round of NCAAs,” Oregon director of track and field Vin Lananna said.
Oregon got off to a good start in the men’s javelin, the first event of the competition Friday. Despite a headwind affecting javelin flights on a beautiful sunny day, junior Cyrus Hostetler and redshirt junior Alex Wolff both recorded top-five finishes. Hostetler’s fifth throw traveled 239 feet, 8 inches, the best mark of the meet and five inches ahead of Boise State’s Pontus Thomee’s third throw. (Thomee passed on all three of his final-round throws.) USC’s Corey White, the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Track and Field Trials competitor who was expected to be Hostetler’s greatest competition Friday, finished in third place with a throw of 237-7. Wolff’s sixth and final throw traveled 233 feet, 5 inches to secure a fourth-place finish.
The Ducks received a pleasant surprise in the long jump, as Vernell Warren leapt a personal-best 25 feet even to secure a third-place finish and automatic berth. Preliminary events kept the crowd of 4,417 occupied until the men’s 5,000 meters, the last event of the day. Seniors Galen Rupp and Shadrack Biwott held close to the race leaders for much of the race before Rupp made his move with three laps remaining to take the lead, eventually winning the race in 13:46.41. Biwott, struggling to maintain his positioning in the last lap, finished in fifth place in 13:57.91.
“I was hoping for it to be kind of a fast pace, an honest 1,500 meters. It’s a great opportunity to just keep practicing, working on my races and finishing,” Rupp said. “That was good practice for the events I choose to run. I’m going to have to run probably two events in the same day or run tired.”
Oregon kicked off another sunny Saturday with a spirited showing in the 1,500m final. Matthew Centrowitz and Rupp, running together, broke away from the leaders with 500 meters remaining. Centrowitz then outkicked Rupp at the 150m mark to take the lead and eventually the race in 3:38.30, a regional record. Rupp finished second in 3:39.14.
“Matt ran really great. He’s the only person I don’t mind losing to,” Rupp said. “He’s at a point right now where he’s in elite company (in the 1,500m).”
Redshirt junior Jordan McNamara, who had overcome two separate stress fractures to compete in the regional meet, was another pleasant surprise on the day for the Ducks as he finished fifth in 3:43.10, giving Oregon three qualifiers in the event. McNamara had sat in the back of the pack for much of the race before moving ahead on the last lap.
“If you asked me two months ago if I would be here, I would have said that’s a great dream, but realistically I don’t think it’s going to happen,” he said. “Vin didn’t put any pressure on me. He said ‘Just get in there, be smooth, do what you can and try to make something happen.’”
An hour later, Chad Barlow managed to overtake teammate Ashton Eaton in the last 20 meters to capture the fifth and final automatic qualifying spot in the 400 meters final, finishing in 47.11 seconds. Eaton finished third at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in the 400m final; Barlow finished sixth.