Oregon Men Rally for Eighth Pac-10 Championship

Five individuals claim titles.

The Duck men scored 14 top-eight finishes in 11 of Sunday's final day events. Photo: goducks.com

STANFORD, Calif. - The University of Oregon’s men’s track and field teams celebrated a thrilling Pacific-10 Conference Championships victory Sunday in second and final day action at Stanford University, while the Duck women added seventh place at Cobb Track and Angell Field.

On the individual front, the Duck men and women added five individual wins (3M, 2W) and 15 regional marks (7M, 8W) Sunday under sunny, 80-degree slightly breezy skies.

The Duck men held on for their third team victory the past six years thanks to their 114 points – albeit the lowest winning tally in the 29 years of the Pac-10 Conference – to beat meet favorites Arizona State (second, 111) and USC (third, 110). UCLA followed in fourth place (92), ahead of Arizona (fifth, 91), Washington (sixth, 89), Washington State (seventh, 84), Stanford (eighth, 72) and California (ninth, 56).

In the women’s team race, Arizona State racked up 158 points to easily defend its title by 33 2/3 points over Stanford (second, 134 1/3). UCLA followed in third place (118 1/2), ahead of USC (fourth, 113), Washington State (fifth, 67 5/6), Arizona (sixth, 62), Oregon (seventh, 61), California (eighth 54 1/3) and Washington (ninth, 49).

On Sunday, the Duck men methodically added to their scoring column with 14 top-eight finishes spread among 11 of Sunday’s 14 events, and weathered a slight hamstring injury to one of their top sprinters – junior Phil Alexander.

The Ducks opened the day with a javelin victory by senior Ryan Brandel who won Oregon’s ninth league javelin title, and their fourth since ’01. The second-year Duck from Milwaukie, Ore., opened with a throw of 219-11 (67.05m), then improved to 231-10 (70.67m) on his second try, then threw his daily best on his third effort of the prelims (235-4) – also his second-best final mark of the season. In the event finals, he followed with another 215-1 (65.57m), added 230-10 (70.36m) on his fifth attempt, and fouled his final throw.

UO added another throws victory late in the afternoon from graduate student and first-year Duck hammer thrower Brian Richotte (222-11, 67.97m). The transfer from Radford University and second-seeded entrant moved into the lead on his third throw (222-10, 67.93m), then improved again slightly on his last throw by another three centimeters. Sunday’s mark was a season best by 3 feet, 3 inches and moved him up one spot on UO’s all-time list to fifth place, past recent two-time Pac-10 champion Adam Kriz (221-3, 2003).

Soon after Richotte’s win, junior Galen Rupp added his second win of the weekend in a tactical 5,000m (14:02.00). The Portland, Ore., native bided his time with the leaders until 800m to go, then surged as only Arizona senior Obed Mutanya. The third-year Wildcat kept 10-15 meter contact through the finish and finished in second place (14:04.08), while the first-day steeplechase champion, Arizona State senior Aaron Aguayo, followed in third place (14:06.00).

Rupp’s double wins in the 5,000m and 10,000m barely 20 hours apart made him only the second Duck ever to accomplish the feat in the same meet as he joined Alberto Salazar who did it in 1981.

Oregon also added two more points to its total from redshirt sophomore Shadrack Kiptoo-Biwott (seventh, 14:17.02) who had also placed third in the 10,000m the night before.

With only the 4x400m remaining, the meet still wasn’t decided with the top three teams separated by only nine points – Oregon (109), Arizona State (105) and USC (100) – while Arizona (90) and UCLA (88) were close behind.

Oregon’s fifth-seeded 4x400m relay was charged with the directive to finish top four without its fastest 100m-200m sprinter before this weekend (junior Phil Alexander) and rely on four sprinters that had never run in the Pac-10 meet before.

The fresh-faced Duck sprint corps proved its mettle and inserted freshman Zach Ancell onto the third leg and he responded with a leg in the 47-second range as did the other first two sprinters – freshmen Ashton Eaton (leadoff) and Chad Barlow (second leg).

Junior Marcus Dillon (anchor) anchored the team home with a mid-46 split that was punctuated by a dive at the finish line as the Ducks just barely placed fourth (3:09.93). The latter’s leg was particularly dramatic since he was passed by the Washington State anchor on the backstretch and was still in sixth place with 200m to go (and at least 20m behind the fourth-place team). However, on the far turn, he started a long drive to the finish and lunged ahead of his UCLA counterpart by .01 seconds, behind the roar of the crowd.

Earlier in the day on the track, Eaton, Dillon, Alexander and sophomore Jared Huske ran on the 4x100m relay that placed third (40.63). Huske followed with his first Pac-10 points in both hurdles races and personal bests in each (110m hurdles, seventh, 14.11, w:1.3; 400m hurdles, eighth, 52.64).

Other Duck final day individual event scorers included Dillon (400m, third, personal best/UO #9 all-time 46.62), Barlow (400m, eighth, 47.97), freshman Andrew Wheating (800m, seventh, 1:50.96), redshirt junior Michael McGrath (1,500m, fourth, 3:47.95) and freshman A.J. Acosta (1,500m, fifth, 3:48.30).

Other first-day men’s marks were posted by Alexander (100m, ninth, 10.80w, w:3.0), freshman Kenny Klotz (5,000m, ninth, 14:31.48), redshirt junior Carlos Trujillo (5,000m, 13th, 14:40.95), sophomore Jon Thomas (14th, 14:44.51), sophomore Chris Winter (5,000m, 17th, 14:47.93), and sophomores Jack Jensen (high jump, no height) and Alexey Shkuratov (triple jump, 13th, 41-5 1/4).

The Men of Oregon celebrated their eighth Pac-10 conference team win since 1979 – the first year of the current league configuration – and others Duck wins came in 1979 (145 points), ’86 (134), ’90 (141), ’91 (96), ’93 (170), ’03 (131) and ’05 (152). The previous lowest winning total was UCLA’s 123-point winning tally over Oregon (second, 93) in 1992, while Oregon’s one-point win in ’03 with 131 points over Stanford was the next lowest victorious score.

Sunday’s race was billed to be a tight one and indeed proved so with only a 25-point differential between the first-fifth teams’ final scores and only 30 points between the first-sixth teams’ scores. For comparison’s sake, only four times in the 29 Pac-10 Championships ever held has the 1-5 spread been less than 50 points– 2006 (42 1/2), ’03 (47), ’98 (37) and ’92 (44). The ’91 edition featured a 26-point margin between 1-5, but the initial team winner USC’s points were not redistributed to the other teams when it forfeited its win later that year.

The Duck men also extended their league-leading stretch of top-two finishes to six straight years since 2002. In that span, only Arizona State (2nd-07), USC (1st-’06), UCLA (1st-’04, 2nd ‘05) and Stanford (2nd-’03, 1st-’02) have also scored top-two finishes, and the Cardinal’s two efforts came under the guidance of current Duck mentor Vin Lananna in his last two seasons.

On the women’s side, UO’s top seeded throwers Britney Henry and Rachel Yurkovich won the hammer (217-10) and javelin (174-11), respectively, to give UO 60 all-time conference titles in Pac-10 and NorPac league competition since 1983.

The top seed entering Sunday, Henry claimed the Ducks’ first-ever hammer crown and edged an all-star field that featured four of the top seven throwers on this year’s collegiate list. Henry opened with a mark of 209-11 (63.98m), had her daily best on her second try (216-8, 66.40m) and threw 214-7 (65.42m) to end the prelims in the top position. In the finals, she added marks of approximately 204-10 (62.45m) and 216-2 (65.90m) on her fourth and six tries and fouled her fifth attempt.

USC’s Eva Orban – the returning Pac-10 champion – nearly took the lead on her opening throw of the finals (217-8, 66.36m), then threw only one centimeter less on her fifth throw (217-8, 66.35m), and had another throw less than a foot away on her last try (216-11, 66.13m).

Yurkovich’s win – UO’s ninth all-time and third straight – was less dramatic as the returning Pac-10 champion took the lead on her first throw 169-2 (51.57m), then improved to her daily best on her third throw 174-11 (53.32m). In the final, she added marks of 173-11 (53.01m) and 173-4 (52.85m) on her fourth and fifth tries.

Stanford’s Dani Maier followed in second place (160-11).

The Ducks rounded out its highest scoring women’s event with two more top-five finishes by sophomore Ashley McCrea (third, 150-5) and freshman Kara Meeuwsen (fifth, 147-3). McCrea’s finish was two places better than her league debut in ’06 (fifth), while the latter logged the second-best mark of her collegiate career behind her season best of 148-8 from the Oregon Twilight last weekend.

Senior pole vaulter Emily Enders enjoyed her fourth, top-eight Pac-10 finish and placed fifth (12-9 1/2) after she tied her season best. The Snohomish, Wash., native had finished eighth in ’06, seventh in ’05 and fifth in ’04 against the nation’s most respected pole vault conference. Enders passed the opening two bars (11-5 3/4 and 11-11 1/4) and opened with a second-attempt clearance at 12-5 1/2. She also cleared her second attempt at 12-9 1/2, then missed her three tries at 13-1 1/2.

On the track, freshmen Zoe Buckman and Nicole Blood finished third and sixth thanks to season bests in the 800m (2:07.84) and 1,500m (4:25.24) as both finished in or near the position they ran virtually the race in. In contrast, sophomore Zoe Nelson braved the warmest conditions of the meet to finish sixth in the 5,000m with a personal best (16:50.42) and improved on her 21st-place pre-meet seeding as she moved up dramatically in the last half of the race that featured 28 entries at the start line.

In the 400m, junior Irie Searcy claimed eighth (54.79) – 21 places better than pre-meet seeding on the conference season best list – after a 1.59-second season best that also improved upon her former personal best of 56.14. UO’s 4x100m and 4x400m relays both finished eighth (46.73 / 3:54.45) with the latter group slowed by a dropped baton early in the race.

Other final-day women’s performers included freshman Keshia Baker (400m, ninth, her second-fastest collegiate mark, 54.90), freshman Eniko Eros (pole vault, 13th, 11-11 3/4), sophomore Tara Rhein (pole vault, 14th, 11-11 3/4), freshman Katie Gallagher (triple jump, 14th, 38-4 1/4) and sophomore Megan Maloney (hammer, ninth, 175-2).

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