Distance Quartet Reps Dawgs At NCAA Finals

NCAA OUTDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS
June 6-9 • Eugene, Ore. • Hayward Field

Live Results | Complete Schedule | Men's Start Lists | Women's Start Lists

WEDNESDAY - MEN - ESPN2
5:02 PM - Gardner - 3,000m Steeplechase - Semifinal

THURSDAY - WOMEN - ESPN2
4:32 PM - Hamlin - 3,000m Steeplechase - Semifinal

FRIDAY - MEN - ESPN
5:54 PM - Gardner - 3,000m Steeplechase - Final
7:25 PM - Gilbert - 5,000m - Final

SATURDAY - WOMEN - ESPN
3:54 PM - Hamlin - 3,000m Steeplechase - Final
5:25 PM - Neale - 5,000m Final

SEATTLE - Four days of competition will bring the 2018 NCAA Track & Field season to a close this week at Oregon's Hayward Field. Washington will be represented at the NCAA Outdoor Championships by a quartet of distance runners with some event symmetry. One male and one female in the steeplechase, and one male and one female in the 5,000-meters.

At least one of the four Dawgs will be in action on all four days of the meet beginning this Wednesday and finishing up on Saturday. The championships feature men's events on Wednesday and Friday, and women's events on Thursday and Saturday.

First up for UW will be Andrew Gardner in the semifinals of the steeplechase on Wednesday at 5:02 p.m. Thursday will feature Emily Hamlin in the women's steeple semis at 4:32 p.m. Friday, if Gardner moves through to the final, he will race at 5:54, and then Colby Gilbert will run the 5k final at 7:25 p.m. The final day, Saturday, will have Hamlin racing at 3:54 if she qualifies for the steeplechase final. Amy-Eloise Neale will then wrap things up in the women's 5k at 5:25 p.m.

ESPN will be televising the championships live. Wednesday and Thursday competition will be live on ESPN2, while Friday and Saturday action will be live on ESPN.

Athletes reached Eugene by surviving the West and East Preliminary Championships two weeks ago in Sacramento, Calif. and Tampa, Fla., respectively. Each site advanced the top-12 athletes or relays in every event on to Eugene for fields of 24 in each event.

The USTFCCCA All-America format remains the same this season, as the top-eight finishers in every event will be named First Team All-Americans, the 9-16 finishers will be Second Team All-Americans, and 17-24 will be honorable mention.

Three of UW's four competitors are seniors, looking to cap off their Husky careers with best-ever finishes at Nationals. Gardner is one of those seniors. The Spokane, Wash. product is coming off perhaps the best race of his career at West Prelims, as he ran a big PR of 8:38.79 to win his heat of the steeple. That time moved Gardner up to No. 3 in school history in the event. Prior to that, Gardner was the Pac-12 runner-up by just a split second. He also won the steeple at the UW-WSU Dual and opened his outdoor season with a 5k PR of 13:56.77, the 10th-best mark in school history. Gardner also made the steeplechase semifinals in 2016, but will be looking to advance to the final this year for the first time. He was also Washington's top finisher at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in the fall, finishing 66th overall and earning All-Pac-12 Second Team honors.

The one non-senior is junior Emily Hamlin, who dropped a stunning 20-second PR at West Prelims to reach her first NCAA Championship on the track. The native of Boise, Idaho took up the steeplechase for the first time this season, and ran it for the first time in Eugene on Apr. 7 with a time of 10:38.59. Less than two months later, Hamlin posted a time of 10:00.35 to finish 11th overall in the West Prelims and move on to Eugene. It was the third-fastest time in school history and 20 seconds faster than just two weeks earlier, when she ran 10:20.49 to take fifth at the Pac-12 Championships. Hamlin also won the steeple at the UW-WSU Dual in 10:24.04 and set a 1,500m PR of 4:21.47 at the Bryan Clay Invite.

Gilbert heads into his final meet as a Husky as an eight-time All-American but looking to score at NCAA Outdoors for the first time. His last trip to NCAA Outdoors came in 2016 when he finished 13th overall in the 5k. The 2016 Pac-12 5k champion, the first and only in UW history on the men's side, Gilbert ran a season-best time of 13:41.88 at the Bryan Clay Invite and then took third in his 24-man West Prelim heat in a time of 13:49.90. At Pac-12s, Gilbert dropped down to the 1,500-meters and was sixth in the final in 3:46.40. Gilbert, from Vancouver, Wash., made the NCAA Indoor podium back in March with a seventh-place finish in the 3,000-meters, scoring for the third year in a row in that event. He is the Washington school record-holder in the 5k indoors (13:34.85) and outdoors (13:35.20).

Neale looks for a seventh All-America honor to wrap up her tremendous collegiate career. She broke the UW school record in the 5,000-meters last month at the Payton Jordan Invite, smashing the previous record by nine seconds with a time of 15:24.16 that also ranked sixth in Pac-12 history. Neale then went under 15:30 again at West Preliminaries, taking fourth in her heat to auto advance in a time of 15:29.89. The Snohomish, Wash. native was the 2017 NCAA Cross Country runner-up and also finished eighth in 2016. Saturday's race will be her first NCAA track race at 5,000-meters as she made the NCAA Outdoor final at 1,500-meters in both 2016 and 2017, with a best finish of eighth-place last year. The Payton Jordan 5k and West Prelims were Neale's only two 5k's of the year thus far. She focused on the 1,500-meters at Pac-12s, placing third in the final, and she ran a season-best 1,500-meter time of 4:14.39 at the Bryan Clay Invitational.

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Andrew Gardner

Colby Gilbert

Emily Hamlin

Amy-Eloise Neale

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