The Oregon men’s track team used the return of a star and a budding rivalry to capture its 10th team title in 16 tries at the Pepsi Team Invitational at Hayward Field on Saturday.
Oregon (180 1/2 team points) took home six individual titles en route to an 11-point victory over second-place Washington (169 1/2). In addition, the Ducks took home 12 regional qualifying marks. The event was highlighted by the dual between Oregon senior Leonidas Watson and Indiana’s Aarik Wilson in the men’s second event of the day, the long jump.
Watson and Wilson ignited the crowd of 2,667 as both took to the runway for the start of the long jump competition. Wilson, the reigning NCAA Indoor champion in both the long jump and triple jump, took little time to show the crowd how he captured those titles. His first jump on Saturday was marked at 25-4 1/2, good for the third-best outdoor mark in the NCAA this season.
However, Wilson’s mark did not stand for long. Behind the applause of audience members and competitors alike, Watson prepared for his second jump. Watson, who finished third in the long jump at the NCAA Indoor championships, finished with a second round jump of 25-10 3/4, good for both the second-best
outdoor length this season and a United States ‘A’ qualifying mark. It also won him first place in the event at the invitational.
“It felt good to beat the number one guy in the nation,” Watson said. “But I know now that he is going to be coming after me now. But that’s what great athletes do; he’s going to come back, and if I jump against him again, it’s going to be a great meet.”
Later in the day, Watson and Wilson again went head-to-head in the triple jump. This time, Wilson got the better of Watson as he finished first with a jump of 53-0 3/4, nearly three feet better than his competitor.
The crowd at Hayward Field also witnessed the return of Jordan Kent on Saturday. The track star spent last year focusing on basketball and competed in his first event since 2003.
“It feels so good; even after three weeks of practice, it feels good to be out there again,” Kent said. “I kind of surprised myself today. I just got to keep on training, keep on working hard, and hopefully those times will go down.”
Kent showed that running track is an old habit as he took home the 100-meter title with a time of 10.63
(w:-1.1), narrowly beating Washington’s Davaon Spence (10.66). The redshirt sophomore also helped the 4×100 relay team take second.
“I just wanted to show people that I am back,” Kent said. “The year off didn’t really do me much harm or cause a lot of pain, and (I feel like) I can just pick it up where I left off. But this is a great day for me, and I just got to keep improving.”
Also on the track, senior Eric Logsdon cruised to a three-second victory over Washington’s Mark Mandi in the 3,000 with a time of 8:09.74.
“I just wanted to come in and run for the win,” Logsdon said. “We were trying to go one, two, three, but one, three, four is not bad. It felt comfortable, took off with 800 left to go, made a smooth break, and it went well.”
The victory also helped the distance team get out from under the weight of former head coach Martin Smith’s resignation earlier this year.
“We felt like we wanted to go out here and do something for coach Smith,” Logsdon said. “We’re not happy about what happened, but we wanted to come out here and show that the Oregon distance runners are for real and that we can come to a home meet and show what we are capable of.”
Along with Logsdon, senior Brett Holts finished third with a personal best of 8:16.41, just ahead of fourth-place finisher freshman Scott Wall (8:18.50), who made his collegiate debut Saturday.
The Ducks also captured titles in the hurdle events, with juniors Eric Mitchum and A.K. Ikwuakor taking the 110 and 400 titles, respectively. In the 110, Mitchum finished with a time of 13.72, ahead of Ikwuakor, who finished second with a time
.05 seconds off his personal best. Ikwuakor went on to help the 4×400 relay team take the title back from Washington, last year’s winner.
“The 400 hurdles has been pretty good for me this year,” Ikwuakor said. “The 4×400 was feeling kind of dead, but we won it, and now I just hope to continue to take it to nationals.”

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