NOTES: Ducks Look to Continue Pac-12 Dominance

Photo by: Eric Evans/GoDucks.com

05/11/17 | Track and Field

OREGON WILL GO FOR A NINTH STRAIGHT CONFERENCE TITLE SWEEP THIS WEEKEND IN THE PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS AT HISTORIC HAYWARD FIELD

By: Nate Krueger

EUGENE, Ore. - The Pac-12 Championships return to Historic Hayward Field this Saturday and Sunday, with the Ducks aiming for a ninth straight sweep of the conference meet. The Men of Oregon have claimed the conference title each of the last 10 seasons, while the Women of Oregon have won the last eight Pac-12 crowns.

Action will begin at 11:35 a.m. on Saturday with the men's hammer throw, and the first day of competition will feature finals in nine field events as well as the men's and women's steeplechase and the men's and women's 10,000 meters. Sunday will begin with the women's hammer throw at 11 a.m., and the remaining finals will take place throughout the day leading up to an awards presentation at 6:25 p.m.

HOW TO FOLLOW: The Pac-12 Championships will not be live streamed on Saturday, but Sunday's action will be broadcast live on the Pac-12 Network beginning at 3 p.m. with the women's 4x100-meter relay. A link to live results can be found at goducks.com/pac12tf, along with meet schedule, heat sheets and other relevant information on the meet. Updates will be provided during the meet on Twitter via @OregonTF and @Run4Ducks.

INTERVIEWS: Head Coach Robert Johnson

Cody Danielson, RS Senior

Maggie Schmaedick, Senior

DUCKS SEEK TO CONTINUE PAC-12 DOMINANCE: All eyes will be on the Ducks this weekend at Historic Hayward Field, as the rest of the Pac-12 looks to dethrone the team that has dominated the conference meet over the past decade. Both the men and the women will have a full entry list of 28 student-athletes, with the men covering all events except the triple jump and the women entered in everything except for the high jump, pole vault and heptathlon.

The Ducks enter the meet with seven athletes entered who have won individual Pac-12 titles, including Mitch Modin, who won the decathlon last weekend in Corvallis to get the Pac-12 Championships off to a great start for the Ducks. In addition to sweeping the last eight Pac-12 titles, the Ducks have won 34 total conference championships with 20 on the men's side and 14 for the women.

While the goal is always to come away with the Pac-12 title at the conference championship meet, the Ducks will also be focused on securing qualifying marks for the NCAA West Regional Championships on May 25-27 in Austin, Texas. The conference meet is the final chance for athletes to qualify for the Regional meet, which accepts the top 48 from each region to compete for a trip to the NCAA Championships in Eugene (June 7-10).

MODIN, DELGADO GO 1-2 IN PAC-12 DECATHLON: The Men of Oregon's quest for an 11th straight Pac-12 title got off to a tremendous start last weekend at the Pac-12 Combined Event Championships in Corvallis, with Mitch Modin and Joe Delgado coming away with 18 points after a 1-2 finish in the decathlon. Entering the second day of competition in second and fifth, respectively, Modin and Delgado each put together tremendous second days to sweep the conference title. The pair went 1-2 in the discus before Modin won the pole vault at 15-5/4.70m to take over the overall lead. Modin then threw a lifetime best 197-0/60.05m to win the javelin and take control of the overall standings, and Delgado took second with a PR throw of his own at 181-6.25/55.33m. With Modin's first-career Pac-12 title all but wrapped up going into the final event, Delgado won the 1,500 meters with a huge PR of 14:14.75 to win the race and vault himself into second, giving the Ducks the 1-2 sweep and a fast 18 points.

UP NEXT: Following the Pac-12 Championships, the Ducks will have a week away from competition before the qualified student-athletes will head to Austin for the NCAA West Regional Championships.

DUCKS WIN FIVE WHEELS AT PENN RELAYS: The Ducks took a large contingent of student-athletes to the famous Penn Relays in Philadelphia last weekend, and came away with five title wheels from the prestigious meet.

The Women of Oregon got things started with another terrific showing in the 4x100, with the quartet of Alaysha Johnson, Deajah Stevens, Makenzie Dunmore and Ariana Washington winning in 42.35 to break the Penn Relays record. A few hours later, the Men of Oregon brought home their first wheel of the weekend in the distance-medley relay Championship of American final. Blake Haney, Marcus Chambers, Mick Stanovsek and Sam Prakel won the race in 9:32.61. The Ducks claimed their third wheel in the sprint-medley relay to wrap the first day's action in Philadelphia, this time breaking their sixth collegiate record of the season in the process. The quartet of Dunmore, Stevens, Hannah Waller and Raevyn Rogers ran an NCAA all-time best 3:39.05 to win. The collegiate record belonged to Oregon briefly, as Texas A&M topped the Ducks' time in 3:39.04 at the SEC Relays just a few moments later.

On the final day, the Men of Oregon brought home another wheel with a win in the 4xMile, as Mick Stanovsek, Tim Gorman, Blake Haney and Sam Prakel ran a blazing 16:21.81 to win the Championship of America final. In anchoring his second winning relay, Prakel earned Penn Relays college athlete of the meet honors as well as Pac-12 men's track athlete of the week. The Women of Oregon wrapped the Ducks' weekend in Philadelphia with Oregon's fifth wheel of the meet, winning the Championship of America 4x400 relay. The team of Elexis Guster, Raevyn Rogers, Makenzie Dunmore and Deajah Stevens took home the title in 3:24.72 to break the Penn Relays meet record.

Individually, Alaysha Johnson brought home the women's collegiate title in the 100 hurdles with a winning time of 12.88, doing so while running into a headwind. Johnson earned Pac-12 women's track athlete of the week honors with her individual win as well as the 4x100 win. In the throws, senior Ryan Hunter-Simms had a big throw in the discus, reaching 194'9" (59.36m), the seventh-best mark in UO history.

OREGON SHINES IN CALIFORNIA: Competing at three different meets in California April 12-15, highlighted by the famous Mt. SAC Relays, the Men and Women of Oregon came away with another incredible performance with multiple record-breaking showings. Raevyn Rogers stole headlines by breaking the 27-year-old collegiate record in the 800 meters in an astounding 1:59.10. The quartet of Makenzie Dunmore, Hannah Cunliffe, Deajah Stevens and Ariana Washington topped their own collegiate record in the 4x100 relay in a blazing 42.12.

In the individual sprints, Stevens and Washington each set personal-bests to finish 1-2 in the invite 100 meters, with Stevens winning in 11.00 and Washington taking a close second in 11.06 in a field that featured former Duck greats Jenna Prandini and Jasmine Todd. The duo put on another impressive performance later in the day in the 200 meters, where Stevens took over the NCAA and world leads in 22.31 with Washington finishing in 22.93.

The Men of Oregon broke a record of their own in the 4x100. The foursome of Damarcus Simpson, Kyree King, Julius Shellmire and Marcus Chambers ran the fastest time in Oregon history in 39.18. King won two individual events, and ran a lifetime best 10.23 in the 100 meters while also winning the 200 in 20.78. In the field events, senior Cole Walsh hit a new PR and finished as the top collegian in the field by clearing 5.50m/18'0.5".

Freshman phenom Katie Rainsberger made more headlines for the Women of Oregon, finishing second in the invite 1,500 meters in 4:13.25, a new NCAA-leading time.

DUCKS ENJOY RECORD-BREAKING START TO OUTDOOR SEASON: A highly productive weekend at the Florida Relays in Gainesville, Fla., was highlighted by a pair of collegiate records for the Women of Oregon. The quartet of Makenzie Dunmore, Hannah Cunliffe, Deajah Stevens and Ariana Washington smashed the collegiate record in the 4x100 relay, flying to a win in 42.34, before breaking it again two weeks later at Mt. SAC. The same four Ducks came back out a few hours later and moved their names to the top of the all-time collegiate list in the 4x200 with a time of 1:28.78. Both marks took the top spot in the Oregon record books as well. The two collegiate records marked the third and fourth for the Women of Oregon so far in 2016-17 (60m, DMR), and first two of the outdoor season. The Men of Oregon had an impressive showing of their own in the 4x100, as Damarcus Simpson, Kyree King, Julius Shellmire and Marcus Chambers secured the second-fastest time in school history with a third-place time of 39.39.

Alaysha Johnson enjoyed a tremendous start to the season, winning the 100-meter hurdles in an Oregon record and personal-record (PR) 12.69 seconds. Sasha Wallace, the indoor national champion in the 60 hurdles, finished sixth in 12.94. Chaquinn Cook claimed the victory in the college long jump with a PR mark of 6.15m/20'2", getting her first outdoor season as a Duck off to a strong start. Senior Cole Walsh opened his final outdoor season with a win in the pole vault, clearing 5.42m/17'9".

The Ducks also received a strong start from their distance runners at the Stanford Invitational. Seventeen-time national champion Edward Cheserek opened outdoors with a win in the 10,000 meters in 28:46.48, which is currently 10th in the nation and 12 seconds better than his 10K qualifying time from last season (28:58.57). Lilli Burdon (4:17.07), Emma Abrahamson (4:18.62) and Jessica Hull (4:19.50) all hit PRs in the college 1,500, and senior Samantha Nadel, the fourth-place finisher in the 3,000 at the Indoor Championships, crushed her PR in the 5,000 meters to win her section in 15:49.26. Tanner Anderson (29:26.15) and Travis Neuman (29:33.95), also posted times in the 10K that should be fast enough for regional qualifiers.

NCAA CHAMPS! WOMEN WIN 7TH INDOOR TITLE IN RECORD FASHION: The Women of Oregon won their seventh NCAA Indoor Championship in the last eight years, breaking the all-time meet scoring record while doing so, and four Ducks claimed individual national titles. Overall, the Ducks earned their ninth national championship in track and field, and 13th total including cross country. Coupled with the women's national title in cross country in the fall, the women are now positioned to take a run at the triple crown (cross country, indoor track and field, outdoor track and field), which no women's team has ever accomplished.

The Ducks scored 84 points to shatter the 29-year-old scoring record of 71, set by Texas in 1988. Hannah Cunliffe (60 meters), Sasha Wallace (60-meter hurdles), Raevyn Rogers (800 meters) and Ariana Washington (200 meters) each hauled in individual titles to lead the Ducks to the historic win. The Ducks dominated the short sprints, with Cunliffe, Washington and Deajah Stevens going 1-3-5 in the 60 meters and Washington and Cunliffe securing the first 1-2 finish in the 200 meters since 2010.

KING CHES TAKES HIS THRONE: In winning the 3,000 and the 5,000 meters at the NCAA Indoor Championships, Edward Cheserek ran his career national title total to 17 and became the winningest athlete in NCAA track and field/cross country history. Cheserek passed Suleiman Nyambui (1979-82) for that honor, and is also now has the most national titles of any male athlete in the history of NCAA Division I athletics. The King trails only Jenna Thompson (Stanford, swimming), who won 19 total national titles, for the most national championships in NCAA DI history. Cheserek made even more history in College Station, Texas, adding a second-place finish in the mile to his two titles to set the meet record for points scored with 28. He also became the all-time NCAA Indoor leader in career points scored with 91. Adding to his incredible career and final season, Cheserek broke the indoor collegiate mile record at the Boston University Last Chance Meet on February 26 in a blazing 3:52.01.

RANKINGS: The Women of Oregon slotted in at No. 2 in the latest outdoor women's rankings, while the Men of Oregon came in at No. 7 in the most recent men's rankings.

BOWERMAN WATCH: The Women of Oregon have landed a record five athletes on multiple watch lists for the Bowerman Award, and boast three on the latest outdoor edition as conference championship meets approach. Raevyn Rogers, Deajah Stevens and Ariana Washington all appeared on the latest list, and Hannah Cunliffe and Sasha Wallace have also appeared on the list multiple times. For the men, Edward Cheserek remains on the watch list for the 27th time in his career, the most appearances in history.