Oregon Women's 4x400m Smashes School Record

Sophomore Leah Worthen has run on a pair of UO indoor record 4x400m relays in '07. Photo: goducks.com

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - In Saturday’s second and final day action of the Tyson Invitational, the University of Oregon women’s 4x400-meter relay added its second school record of the weekend in the event hosted by the University of Arkansas in the Randal A. Tyson Track Center.

The quartet of junior Kavina Hall, sophomores Rebekah Noble and Leah Worthen and freshman Keshia Baker finished third overall and second in their heat in a time of 3:38.92.

That time easily broke the former Duck school record (3:44.55) by 5.63 seconds that came two weeks ago in Seattle by the quartet of Hall, Searcy, Worthen and Baker.

Since it met the NCAA qualifying standard (3:40.00), UO’s time Saturday was its first-ever NCAA qualifying mark in the event, and a mark that 20 teams nationally have also met before this weekend.

Overall in Saturday’s race, Illinois ranked first among the three ‘collegiate section’ heats (3:36.76), and was followed by UCLA which won the third heat (3:38.27) and stood second in the final standings.

On Friday, Duck redshirt senior Lauryn Jordan also claimed a school record in the long jump (third, 20-4 1/2) and again easily eclipsed the NCAA provisional mark of 20-0 1/4 (6.10m).

The Stockton, Calif., native had three other leaps of 19-10 or better and rewrote her week-old school record of 20-1 (6.12m) from the Husker Invitational.

The third-year Duck also owned the previous preseason school record (19-11 1/2) that came in 2005.

Looking ahead, the Duck squads return to action in two weeks in the Mountain Pacific Championships, Fri.-Sat., Feb. 23rd-24th in Seattle and take on many of the best teams from the Pac-10 and Big West Conferences.

A tentative meet schedule is available at www.GoHuskies.com, and more information on the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation is available at www.mpsports.org

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