Eugene’s Outdoor Season Begins: OTC vets show their stuff, youngest Ducks get started

 

Story: Lev Rourke
Photos: Kim Spir

EUGENE – The 2011 outdoor track season got underway last Saturday at Hayward Field on an appropriately blustery afternoon that tested both the fans’ and competitors’ mettle. Along the way, sprinters settled for hard-earned marks run into a cold wind while some of the Oregon Track Club’s star veterans showed they are ready for the upcoming 18-month-long push to a World Championships in 2011 in Korea and Olympic Games in 2012 in London.
 
The exciting championship meets that will choose both those teams will take place at this very stadium. The USATF Championships are here this June, the Olympic Trials the following summer. (Hasay and Brianne Theisen at right.)
For the Oregon Ducks, the annual Oregon Preview meet was just that, as a number of the leading members of this year’s squad took the week off, recovering from the strenuous NCAA indoor championships seven days earlier in Texas. Oregon’s women’s team ran away with that title, repeating as national champions. The men hardly had such glory, settling for a handful points, from David Klech in the heptathlon and Matthew Centrowitz in the 3,000.
Jordan Hasay, the star of the NCAA meet with two thrilling individual wins (mile, 3k), did not run on Saturday. The next decision for Hasay will be whether it is time for her eventual move up in distance to the 5,000. Will it be this spring? Hasay is expected to test herself at that distance later this season in one of the big races at Stanford, but perhaps stick with the 15 for the championship part of the season.
It will be much harder for the Oregon women to win the NCAA outdoor team championship – something they have not done in 25 years – because the indoor meet has the DMR, where Oregon finished 2nd, and the schedule allowed Hasay to double. With those not available outdoors, that is an immediate loss of 18 points. The other contending teams figure to be Texas A&M, which won the title here at Hayward in 2010, and LSU. The 2011 meet will be held at Drake University in Iowa. The Western Regional qualifying meet will be held in Eugene the last weekend in May. That scheduling has forced the annual state high school 4A-5A-6A championships meet to a week earlier on the calendar, thus coinciding with the small-school state meet, which will be held the same weekend, in Monmouth.
OTC
“It struck me that this was my first time here in an OTC uniform, and this was the very first event of the day,” said Bridget Franek, shortly after finishing the women’s 2,000-meter steeplechase, an abbreviated version of the grueling event. “It’s all pretty cool. It’s why I came here.”
Franek, who is from Ohio and who got her B.S. in kinesiology from Penn State last spring, ran the 2k steeple in what appeared to be a relaxed 6:25.31, which in fact is a very fast time. Because the event is rarely run, it was barely noticed, but it appears to be the 2nd-fastest ever run by an American, after the 6:20.66 by Carrie Messner in 2007. She won by 21 seconds.
Franek arrived in Eugene in October and is the newest elite member of the Oregon Track Club. She won the NCAA championship here a year ago for the Nittany Lions and is considered a strong contender for the upcoming national teams in the steeple.
“This was a good chance for a race simulation,” Franek said. “It was just a workout. It was good. It was fun. I just love the steeple.”
She is being coached by Mark Rowland of the OTC. “I’ve made big strides since I’ve gotten here,” Franek said. “I’ve made big steps in my career.
“I’ve upped my mileage. There have been some tweaks to my form. Coach Rowland is a steeplechaser himself. He doesn’t give me everything at once. It’s best for me to take things one thing at a time.
“I run with Nicole Blood a lot, and Geena Gall, and some with Sally Kipyego. We don’t have another steeple person here right now, but that’s OK.”
Nicole, Geena and Sally all run later in the day. Gall won the 1,500 in a controlled 4:18.12, pulling the Oregon sophomore Becca Friday to a lifetime best behind her, in 4:21.11. Blood, at the front most of the way, fell back to 3rd in 4:26.
“I graduated in December in broadcasting,” Blood said. “I’m just working on my strength right now.”
Kipyego cruised through a 3,000 in an excellent 8:51.07, winning by 46 seconds and breaking a 20-year-old meet record. “I’m going to try to make the Kenyan team for the World Championships,” Kipyego said. “The qualifying meet will be July 14 in Nairobi. I don’t know yet if I will try for the 5k or the 10k. We’ll see.”
World indoor heptathlon record-holder Ashton Eaton set an outdoor PR in the javelin – 56.59m/183-03. He finished fifth in the competition, with two throws, behind Michael Lauritzen from Air Force (65.04 m/213-05.) Eaton was also entered in the discus and high jump but withdrew. Intermittent rain and hail, sun and blue skies, warmth and chill made for a typical March day in Eugene and uncertainty.
Ducks
Oregon’s sprinters all ran, despite the brisk conditions, and the women’s 4x1 team of two veterans, Alexandria Davidson and Amber Purvis, and two newcomers, Lauryn Newson and English Gardner ran an impressive 44.61.
Newson, noted as a longjumper the last two years at Laney Junior College in California, also won the 200 after a lackluster indoor season. “I never ran indoors before,” Newson said. “I’m glad to finally get outdoors, although this is kind’of cold today.”
Gardner, a freshman from New Jersey, won the 400 in an impressive 56.20 given the conditions.
Not that far back was Portland State, 2nd in 45.92, just .01 off their school record. “We have the best sprint relay in the Big Sky Conference,” said the PSU coach, Ronnye Harrison.
The Vikings’ Geronne Black won the 100, in 11.98, and her teammate Karene King finished 2nd in the 200 to Newson, 24.16-24.36. Black is from New York City, King from the British Virgin Islands.
Oregon’s Jorday Stray has a nice season opener in the hammer, throwing 214-1. The women’s hammer was won by the Oregon graduate Britney Henry, who threw a meet-record 218-9. “She came up from California to throw and to train here for a few days,” said Lance Deal. Deal, replaced over the summer as the school’s throws coach, continues to mentor Henry.
Oregon’s newly acquired throwing sensation, the freshman Sam Crouser, did not compete in the meet. /LR/