Oregon track and field continued its NCAA outdoor season with two meets over the weekend, one at the Sun Angel Classic in Tempe, Arizona, on Friday and Saturday, and the other at the Knight Twilight held at Western Oregon university on Friday.
Already with 28 athletes with marks ranking in the top-50 in the nation this season, the team ranked fifth in the nation on the women’s side and eighth on the men’s heading into the weekend’s competition.
The team collected four wins on Friday between the two meets, lead by an NCAA top-15 performance by senior Cravon Gillespie, the NCAA’s leader at the 100-meters, who won the 200 meters on Friday in a time of 20.74 seconds at the Sun Angel.
Sophomore Reed Brown, a typical mile runner for the Ducks, took home a win of his own at his first ever 5,000-meter race, finishing in 14 minutes, 22.98 seconds.
In the women’s 200 meters, reigning Pac-12 champion Makenzie Dunmore finished second overall and first among collegians in a time of 23.35, followed by six other Ducks finishing in the top ten.
At the Knight Twilight, freshman Caramia Mestler competed in her first ever race outdoors for the Ducks, finishing in first place at the 1500 meters with a time of 4 minutes, 47.61 seconds. Mestler out-leaned her competition at the tape to win by just .02 seconds.
On Saturday at the Sun Angel, the Ducks’ hurdle squad had a consistent showing across the board. Hurdlers Kaylah Robinson and Emily Sloan finished second and third at the 100-meter hurdles. On the men’s side of the short hurdles, all five men who competed in the 110-meter hurdles ran personal bests, lead by freshman Eric Edwards Jr. who finished in 13.93 seconds.
In the long hurdles, junior Jonathan Harvey leaned his way to a new personal best and a win at the 400-meter hurdles, in a NCAA No. 9 time of 51.03 seconds.
For the distance crew, senior Susan Ejore ran to a personal best time of 2 minutes, 3.09 seconds, good for No. 2 in the NCAA this season. And for the men, sophomore Cooper Teare, fresh off a highly successful indoor season at the 3,000 meters, climbed from eighth place to first place in the final 400 meters of the men’s 1,500, winning in a time of 4 minutes, 0.85 seconds.
The Oregon throwers also saw personal bests on Saturday. With the 10^th best performance in Oregon track and field outdoor history, junior Jackson VanVuren threw his way to a first-place finish in the men’s javelin.
Junior Kiana Phelps also took home a victory in the women’s shot put, adding over a foot to her personal best with a throw of 51 feet, 9.25 inches, a mark which moves her to No. 5 all-time at Oregon.
Next stop for the Ducks is the Bryan Clay Invitation in Azusa, California.