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Oregon Twilight Spotlights Top Collegiate & Post-Collegiate TalentPublished by
Oregon Twilight Spotlights Top Collegiate & Post-Collegiate TalentEUGENE - The University of Oregon track and field teams wrap up their regular season this weekend with three days of action, kicked off by the Oregon Twilight, Friday May 5. Oregon’s fourth home meet of the season will serve as final preparation for the upcoming Pacific-10 Conference Championships, presented by 76 ProClean Gasolines, on Sat.-Sun., May 13-14, which will travel to Eugene for the sixth time since 1960, and first time since 2000. The Pac-10 multi-events competition will also take place this weekend on Sat.-Sun., May 6-7 from approximately noon – 5:30 p.m., and admission is free to the public.
Junior pole vaulter Emily Enders is
one of the Duck women's headlers Friday evening in the Oregon Twilight,
and has topped 13 feet in two of her last three appearances, including
a personal best in the Trojan Invitational at the end of March in L.A.
(first, 13-5 3/4) and two weeks ago in the Oregon Invitational (fifth,
13-1 1/2). The Snohomish, Wash.,
native was an NCAA qualifier as a freshman in 2004, and is a two-time
Pac-10 scorer against the nation’s toughest pole vault conference which
features seven of the top 20 collegians on the ’06 qualifying list. The Oregon throws unit is one of the nation's best and features a pair of NCAA veterans in both the javelin and hammer. After she broke the high school javelin record in April 2005 at Hayward Field (176-5), current freshman Rachel Yurkovich upped
her best in her collegiate debut in mid-March’s Oregon Preview (179-10)
to move to second all-time for UO. Overall this season she has topped
160 feet in all five of her meets -including another +170-footer in the
Trojan Invitational (first, 174-0) - and has won four of them. Redshirt junior Britney Henry has
upped the school hammer record in the Oregon Preview (208-7) and Mt.
SAC Relays (221-7) this year, and was just shy of the latter mark in
her last outing – the Oregon Invitational (first, 221-5). This weekend,
she will again take aim at her personal best from ’05 (223-8) - a mark
that ranked her ninth all-time in U.S. history and fifth in the U.S. and 51st in the world last season. Redshirt senior Brittany Hinchcliffe,
UO's former hammer school record holder, has improved her personal best
in three meets this year – the Oregon Preview (third, 199-3), Pepsi
Team Invitational (third, 200-6) and Oregon Invitational (third,
205-1), and stands ninth nationally in the event in '06. Freshman Megan Maloney moved
to seventh all-time in the event for UO last weekend with her
seven-foot personal best in the Western Oregon Twilight (181-2) and
continues to rewrite the former Oregon freshman record previously owned
by former NCAA discus All-American Mary Etter (163-8, 2000). On the men's side for the Ducks in Friday's Oregon Twilight, freshman Matthew Maloney boomed a +23-foot javelin best in the Oregon Invitational two weekends ago (224-11) and moved to seventh all-time for UO. The Barrington, R.I. native led the 2005 U.S. prep season best list and ranked 17th among all Americans with his personal best of 231-5 last May, then took sixth in the U.S. Junior Championships (205-0) last June. The men’s 4x100-meter relay will try to improve its season best and regional qualifier of 40.33 that won the Pepsi Team Invitational in early April. Last year’s unit of seniors Richard Del Rincon and Matt Scherer, Kedar Inico, and redshirt junior Jordan Kent sped to school records in the Pac-10 Championships (second, 39.20) and NCAA Championships (sixth, 39.20, 39.22-p). All-America senior Akobundu Ikwuakor continues to round into form in both hurdles events in the final week before the Pac-10 Championships. Last year he placed third in the Pac-10 and West Regional 110-meter hurdles, and added a personal best of 13.83 in the West Regional prelims in Eugene. He also earned an NCAA invitation in the 400-meter hurdles in ’05 with his fifth-place regional finish (51.92), but declined it to focus on the high hurdles and 4x400-meter relay – the latter of which smashed the school record in the event final (third, 3:00.81). Relay teammate and redshirt junior Jordan Kent will race his first open 400 meters for UO in his collegiate career. As a prep, he owned a best of 47.22 that won the Oregon 4A state championships in 2002.
Among other athletes to watch Friday, former Duck All-American Leonidas Watson of Team XO returns to the Hayward Field runway to compete in the long jump and triple jump. In 2005, he helped the 'Men of Oregon' to the Pac-10 team win with top-three finishes in the long jump (third, 25-5) and triple jump (second, 53-8 1/2). A month later led collegians in the USA Championships long jump (seventh, 25-6). Former Stanford NCAA champion Jonathan Riley of the Nike Farm Team returns to the 5,000-meter distance – the same event he took second in the 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials. He also finished fourth in the U.S. 5K final in 2003, and his best of 13:21.11 dates back to 2004. On the post-collegiate women's scene, former Duck NCAA pole vault champion Becky Holliday of New Balance made her season debut two weeks ago in the Oregon Invitational in Eugene and cleared 14-1 1/4 on a shortened approach. Eugenean Marla Runyan returned to the track for the first time in a year in the Oregon Invitational two weekends ago and took the U.S. list lead (33:11.92). She made the U.S. Olympic team in 2004 thanks to a runner-up Olympic Trials finish in the 5,000m after she had won three straight U.S. 5K titles from 2001-03. This week she is entered in the 5,000m, and she stands fifth all-time in the U.S. with her best of 14:59.20 from 2004.
Entered in the 1,500 meters, former Colorado NCAA champion Renee Metivier ranked sixth in the U.S. in the 5,000m last year (15:15.78), and also ran a national class time in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (10:13.80). On Saturday and Sunday, many
of the nation’s top multi-event athletes will do battle in the first
day of the Pac-10 heptathlon and decathlon. Four of the heptathlon
entries rank top 10 among collegians this year, while three league men
have already topped the NCAA provisional 7,000-point barrier this
season. Redshirt senior decathlete Andrew Young is
the top returning Pac-10 decathlete from last year after he took second
place (7,165 points) for his third top-five career finish, and is a two-time NCAA decathlon veteran (11th in ’05, 13th in ‘04). A pair of women’s heptathletes – redshirt freshman Kalindra McFadden and senior Lauryn Jordan - currently rank ninth and 10th nationally with their strong NCAA provisional scores of 5,428 and 5,426
points, respectively. McFadden and Jordan also moved to fifth and sixth
all-time for UO with their heptathlon personal bests from the Mt. SAC
Relays in mid-April. Last season Jordan was an NCAA qualifier and Pac-10 placer (14th/fourth) in her first season for UO. Looking
ahead to the league finale the following weekend, the ‘Men of Oregon’
will seek their third conference team title in four years after they
won in 2003 and ’05, and last year they piled up points in 18 of the 21
events, and 21 of UO’s men’s athletes scored top-eight finishes. The UO
women tallied 68 points last year for seventh place in the UCLA-hosted
finale for their highest team score since 1998. Duck track and field alumni are strongly encouraged to sign up in advance for the team’s Homecoming Celebration that features a Saturday
evening reception at Hayward Field on May 13 at the end of the first
day of the Pac-10 Championships. Admission to the event includes a
catered dinner at Hayward Field, 'Fire on the Track' DVD, a special
commemorative T-shirt, and access to a special seating section at the
meet. More information is available at the Homecoming Info link on the
left side of the GoDucks.com track and field page. Last weekend, in the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, senior All-America hurdler Eric Mitchum took
second in the collegiate 110m hurdles final (13.83) for his sixth
sub-14.00 clocking of 2006 in as many races, while the men’s 4x400m
relay of senior Travis Anderson, redshirt junior Jordan Kent, senior Akobundu Ikwuakor and senior Matt Scherer took fifth (3:10.90) and featured a 44.8-second anchor by Scherer. Closer to home last Friday, a group of approximately 30 men and women competed in the Western Oregon Twilight, and top marks came courtesy of sophomore Kasey Harwood (400m hurdles, first, track record, 60.23), freshman Megan Maloney (hammer, second, personal best 181-2) and Colin Veldman (discus, first, track record 182-0). * Tentative Oregon Twilight Men's Entries 200m – Travis Anderson 400m – Jordan Kent 800m – Jeff Erb, Robert Gillespie, Michael McGrath, Adam Meyer, Andrew Perri, Joel Sauvain 1,500m - Vertin Alvarez, Blake Flanders, Ian Terpin, Carlos Trujillo, Duke Wasteney, Patrick Werhane, Chris Winter Steeple - Chris Winter 5,000m - Vertin Alvarez, Carlos Trujillo, Esteban Trujillo, Patrick Werhane 110m Hurdles - Jared Huske, Akobundu Ikwuakor 400m Hurdles - Jared Huske, Akobundu Ikwuakor 4x100m Relay High Jump - Jack Jensen, Jeff Lindsey, A.J. O'Connell Pole Vault - Keegan Burnett, David Moore Long Jump - Andrew Greif, Bret Johnson, Matthew Welch Shot Put - Mark Lewis, Ian Reynoso Discus - Steven Johnson, Colin Veldman Hammer - Mike Hill, Steven Johnson, Colin Veldman Javelin - Ryan Brandel, Matthew Maloney * Tentative Oregon Twilight Women's Entries 100m - Amanda Santana 800m - Kasey Harwood, Amber McGown, Rebekah Noble, Sara Schaaf 1,500m - Heather Fitz-Gustafson, Amber McGown, Zoe Nelson, Rebekah Noble, Sarah Pearson, Sara Schaaf 3,000m Steeplechase - Dana Buchanan, Mandi Fitz-Gustafson, Emily Mathis 5,000m - Liisa Heinonen 100m Hurdles - Kasey Harwood 400m Hurdles - Kasey Harwood, Amanda Santana Pole Vault - Emily Enders, Hannah Moore, Tara Rhein Shot Put - Jennifer Greenspan Discus - Lucy Cridland Hammer - Britney Henry, Brittany Hinchcliffe, Megan Maloney Javelin - Ashley McCrea, Elisa Reynoso, Rachel Yurkovich * Note: Entries are listed alphabetically, and several athletes are
entered in multiple events and may not compete in every event. More news |
