By Zac Neel
The rain started to pour down midway through the second day of the NCAA Track and Field Championships on Thursday at Hayward Field, and with it, the Oregon women’s track team’s hopes to defend its national title slowly washed away.
From a dropped baton in the 4×400 meter relay resulting in a DQ to sophomore Hannah Cunliffe pulling up short of the finish line in the 100 due to an injury, the chances for Oregon to finish the weekend with a spot on the podium, let alone repeat as national champions, is looking bleak. The Ducks are tied for 22nd with four points, well behind the leader, Arkansas, which has 26.
Oregon coach Robert Johnson said he wasn’t sure the Ducks have enough competitors remaining to contend for the title. “But we are going to go back out there and try, of course,” he said. “That is why they run the race.”
Oregon’s woes continued when freshman Lilli Burdon missed qualifying in the 1,500 by six seconds and freshman Alaysha Johnson missed the cut in the 100 hurdles.
Junior Brittany Mann was the only athlete to score for the Ducks, placing fifth in the shot put with a distance of 57 feet, 4 inches, a personal best and school record.
After seeing some disappointing finishes by a few of her teammates, Mann made a point to come out and do her part in helping the team.
“Stuff is going to happen, and it happens to everybody,” said Mann. “The biggest thing is to know that when one person goes down, the next has to be ready – it’s what we do as a team. That was kind of my thought process today – I just wanted to go do as much as I could for the team today.”
Redshirt freshman Ariana Washington put herself in position to rack up several points on Saturday, qualifying for the finals in both the 100 and the 200. Washington had the fastest time in the 100 with 11.18 and finished just 0.29 seconds behind fellow Duck Deajah Stevens in the 200. Stevens posted the fastest time at 22.32.
“I didn’t have the best of starts,” said Washington after a false start disqualified Florida’s Shayla Sanders, the SEC champion. “I don’t really do well with false starts – sometimes it breaks my focus. I just tried my best to regroup and trust that if I ran my race, I would be fine.”
Washington was part of the Oregon 4×100 relay team that qualified for Saturday’s final, but with the injury to Cunliffe, who ran the third leg of the relay, questions linger about how well the Ducks will be able to contend.
“We just try not to focus on that now,” said Washington. “We just have to focus on the task at hand, and that is to come home with a national championship on Saturday. We will push through and replace people as we need to and get through this.”
