SEATTLE – A sparkling mile run from All-American Amy-Eloise Neale and a Meet Record from All-American sprinter Kennadi Bouyer were the exclamation marks on what was Washington's most complete all-around performance to date at the Husky Classic inside the Dempsey. The two-day meet saw the Husky track squad combine for nine new marks in the top-10 lists, and four marks ranking in the top-10 in the NCAA this season.
Neale, the Pac-12 Cross Country Athlete of the Year, got on track on the track in a big way today. Running in the top mile section, she positioned herself mid-pack and heading into the final lap she was still sixth overall, but Neale began to power past competitors one after another, eventually coming up just behind Penn State's Danae Rivers for second-place in a time of 4:34.15, which should rank her sixth in the NCAA when the dust from the weekend settles.
Neale now ranks second in UW history in the mile, behind only Katie Flood's 4:28.48 time from 2012 which is the sixth-fastest in NCAA history. Coming into today, Neale's mile PR was 4:43.84, so she cut more than nine seconds off that mark, and finished with a grin on her face knowing that she had an NCAA qualifier in hand, and it hadn't even felt all that hard.
"I'm really excited because I think it was one of the easiest miles I've ever run because it was so smooth and the pace gradually increased, and I felt very calm and collected," Neale said. "I was going to be happy with anything around 4:37, I was honestly just really surprised and really didn't know that I was capable of doing that, and now I definitely think I can run faster than that now."
The time will all but certainly qualify Neale for her first NCAA Indoors, and she was glad to have that hurdle out of the way. "Hopefully that will get me to nationals, and now I can focus on racing at MPSFs and not really worry about time. Just worry on improving over the next few weeks and not worry about getting a qualifier," she said.
Bouyer also improved her chances of a return trip to NCAA Indoors, by a hundredth of a second, but in the 60-meter dash, every hundredth counts. The senior dominated the 60-meters with a 7.31 second time in the prelims, and then a new Meet Record 7.28 in the final. That was .01 better than her season-best coming in, and another .01 off her school record set last year.
The dash from Bouyer was just one of several impressive performances by the sprints crew today. Senior Lucas Strong had a stunning breakthrough in the men's 60m prelims, cutting a tenth of a second off his PR with a 6.77 run that jumps him into the Top-10 for the first time all the way up to a tie for No. 4. He ran a 6.81 in the final, the second-fastest of his career.
In the first open 400-meters of her Husky career, senior transfer Laura Anuakpado went straight to No. 2 in school history, winning the event with a time of 54.21 seconds. Darhian Mills and Eric Simpson both made the women's and men's 60m hurdles finals, respectively. Mills ran a new PR of 8.66 to finish fourth overall, and Simpson tied his PR at 8.13 seconds for third-place. Laura Anuakpado running away with the 400-meters in 54.21 seconds.
Another new Top-10 mark came from sophomore Hannah Derby, as she cut a second off her indoor 800-meter best, running 2:08.08 to take second in her heat, and move up two spots to No. 6 in school history. Mason Fletcher and Jonathon Cantle both ran indoor PRs for the men at 800m, with Fletcher going 1:52.58 and Cantle 1:52.61.
The pole vault crew continued to round into shape today, as senior Pac-12 Champion Elizabeth Quick had a big clearance to put herself in the NCAA mix. Quick got up and over 13-10 ½ to jump all the way up to 10th on the descending order list. Senior Kristina Owsinski, competing unattached, also cleared that height, her best this season. Redshirt freshman Annika Dayton also had a big PR, making 12-10 ¾.
In the men's vault, sophomore Chase Smith upped his PR for the second meet in a row, going 17-4 ½ to move up to a tie for 27th nationally. Freshman Jacob Bowler and sophomore Blaise Black also had season-best makes of 16-4 ¾.
It was the best weekend for the throws as well, as junior Onyie Chibuogwu had a big season's-best in the weight throw, going 57-6 ½, just four inches off her career-best, to take 10th overall. Freshman Jose Padilla then improved his shot put PR with a toss of 55-0 ¼.
"Of our meets so far, this is the best collective meet we've had this indoor season," said Head Coach Greg Metcalf. "Our throwers gained some momentum, our jumps crew were better than they were two weeks ago, and our sprinters have made really great progress, and there were bright spots in our middle and distance kids. Kennadi by herself to run 7.31 and 7.28, she's operating at a much higher level than she was a year ago, so I think it leads to something bigger happening in the coming weeks. She has big-time expectations of herself and we're excited to see what she does. Amy was a little slow to start, but two days ago she came up to me in practice and said 'I'm ready to run fast now.' She was so methodical and patient today, it's as easy a mile as I've ever seen her run, and it's by far the fastest she's ever run. To run 4:34, Katie Follett ran 4:34 and was the NCAA mile runner-up that year, so to run that time is fantastic. She's heading in a great direction at the right time."
In the earlier mile heats, sophomore Emily Hamlin cut four seconds off her career-best time, posting a 4:50.38, while Josephine Bosserman went 4:58.33, just off her PR by two seconds, and freshman Micaela Kostecka ran 5:00.77. On the men's side, Keith Williams ran 4:12.01 and freshman Gavin Parpart went 4:16.10 just a week after qualifying for the World Junior Cross Country Championships.
At 3,000-meters, Grace Hodge had an eight-second career-best, running 9:50.20. Charlie Barringer and Mahmoud Moussa also had big PRs. Barringer went 8:09.31 and Moussa ran 8:11.05, a 12 second PR for Barringer and an eight second best for Moussa.
Mayson Douglass had a 5-5 ¾ make in the high jump to tie for sixth-place overall, while Cole Jensen matched his high jump PR with a clearance of 6-8 ¾.
Bouyer also long jumped for the first time this season, and went an even 19-feet to finish second, and in the triple jump, senior Alanna Coker led the way with a leap of 38-11 ¾ to finish fifth overall.
Capping things off with one more new mark for the recordbooks, the Huskies finished first and second in the women's 4x400m relay with a bit of a split squad, after setting the school record in the event two weeks ago. The winning group tonight was Imani Apostol, Carolyn Birkenfeld, Derby, and Mills, going 3:44.76, which is good for eighth all-time.
A few Huskies will compete in Sunday's UW Indoor Open, but for the majority of the team it will be two weeks until the indoor home season concludes with the MPSF Championships on Feb. 24-25.
