Ask a female Oregon track athlete how she approaches today’s NCAA Championships in Sacramento, Calif., and she’ll likely answer differently than her teammates do.
Thrower Britney Henry looks at it like every other meet.
“It is a great meet, but I can’t let it intimidate me,” she said.
Fellow thrower Brittany Hinchcliffe relies on deep-breathing techniques and practice cues, and she talks to herself.
Wait, she talks to herself?
“People tend to notice that,” she said.
Javelin thrower Rachel Yurkovich and runner Kasey Harwood welcome the adrenaline that comes from the pressure.
“Sometimes nerves help, but you just got to deal with them in the right way,” Yurkovich said.
More pressure, coach Vin Lananna said, came at the Pacific-10 Conference Championships in front of a home crowd and family and friends than the athletes will face today.
“I think the NCAAs is an opportunity to go out there and have some fun and get out and compete to the best of your ability and be excited about what the possibilities are,” he said.
The four-day NCAA Championships, located on Sacramento State’s campus, will feature the top track athletes from across the country. Oregon is sending 11 women, including the nation’s third-ranked hammer thrower in Henry and two top-five freshmen in Yurkovich and Rebekah Noble.
“I think they’ve put themselves in a position where they can be a top-10 team,” Lananna said of the women.
Texas enters as the top-ranked team in the Division I Coaches Poll followed by USC, Miami, Georgia and Nebraska. The Trackwire 25, available on Trackshark.com, gives hypothetical NCAA meet scores based on injury reports, coach information and meet results. Texas is first (59 points) with USC (40), Miami (39), Auburn (36) and South Carolina (34) following in succession.
Pac-10 foe UCLA is going for its second consecutive title and entering nine athletes in 10 events.
Lananna has closely monitored Noble’s events this season with an awareness of the World Junior Championships in August in Beijing. To do that, he’s mixed her events, sometimes having her run the 400 meters or the 1,500. In the Pacific-10 Championships, she ran the 800 and 1,500 with Lananna’s goal to prepare her for three 800 races in Sacramento.
“I’m going to focus on getting out and getting a good spot early,” Noble said. “I’m going to try and stay out in front.”
Noble, 10th on the all-time U.S. junior list in the 800, is facing her stiffest challenge yet, racing against Michigan’s eighth-ranked Geena Gall and Minnesota’s ninth-ranked Heather Dorniden. At the Western Regionals in Provo, Utah, Noble secured the 800 title with a winning time of 2 minutes, 6.45 seconds.
Asked whether Noble needs to match her 2:02.85 time of the Oregon Twilight, Lananna pointed to an even lower time.
“If she is going to compete for a World Junior Title, she’s certainly is not only going to need to be that fast, but better than that,” he said.
Her best time currently sits fourth on Oregon’s all-time list behind Claudette Groenendaal (1:58.33), Leann Warren (1:59.63) and Ranza Clark (2:01.7).
Teammate Sara Schaaf, a fellow 800 runner, is making her first NCAA appearance with her fourth-place finish (2:09.23) at Regionals.
“There is a team aspect because I want Sara Schaaf to do well,” Noble said. “But you have to also focus on how you’re going to do and how you can maximize your time.”
Fifth-year senior Amber McGown earned an at-large bid in the 1,500 after her season-best time at Pac-10s (third, 4:19.00) and 10th-place finish at Regionals (4:31.44). McGown spent the last four years at Cornell, where she dealt with a variety of injuries and never reached Nationals until now.
“I was a little upset with how the race turned out,” McGown said. “We weren’t used to the altitude – no one was. It was the hardest race of my life.”
Henry is seeking redemption after her last NCAA appearance ended when she fouled out as a member of LSU. Henry joined Oregon last season and redshirted the 2005 season as part of the twice transfer rule (she attended Southeast Louisiana as a freshman).
“We’ve been shooting for the end of the year to peak and I feel like that’s going to happen,” Henry said.
Seeking extra practice, Henry threw the hammer last week in the Prefontaine Classic. She placed sixth there at 214-11 following a fourth-place finish (209-3) at Western Regionals the day before. Her school record of 221-7 came earlier this season at the Mt. SAC Relays.
“Both those places were awesome – a good prelude to what’s going to happen at Nationals,” Henry said.
Hinchcliffe moved into third on NCAA list with a third-place finish in the hammer at Regionals (210-5). She too followed that with an appearance in the Prefontaine meet.
She made her first NCAA appearance last year, placing 12th (189-1). Hinchcliffe plans to qualify in preliminaries Thursday, obtain a good seed mark and go strong on her first throw Saturday.
“Our throwers are strong. Not only did we qualify for Nationals, but most of us have the ability to place at Nationals, which is a very big deal and I hope the best for all of us,” Hinchcliffe said.
Yurkovich complemented her Pac-10 crown with a Regional title. She reached 165-7 on her fifth throw after four previous tosses of 161-8 or lower. She adjusted her approach midway through, changing to a shortened seven-step approach. She plans a full approach this week and will only switch if necessary.
“I just go out there and know this is what I’m here to do,” Yurkovich said. “I know the only expectations out there are the ones that I have for myself.”
Yurkovich faces defending javelin champion Air Force’s Dana Pounds – one of three returning champions along with USC’s Virginia Powell (100 hurdles) and Alabama’s Beth Mallory (discus).
Heptathletes Lauryn Jordan and Kalindra McFadden see 2004 Heptathlon champion Jacquelyn Johnson again after she won the Pac-10 heptathlon at Hayward Field a month ago. Johnson owns the nation’s top collegiate mark this season (5,987 points). McFadden and Jordan earned their best marks at the Mt. SAC Relays, where freshman McFadden placed third (5,428) and senior Jordan fourth (5,426).
No matter what happens this week, Schaaf said she is excited about the direction of the program.
“I’m definitely excited for the Oregon program,” Schaaf, a fifth-year senior, said. “In a way, I wish I was a freshman because I would be excited to be a part of this for my next four years.”