Six Top-Five Finishes For Dawgs As Pac-12s Wrap

Sunday, May 13

Stanford, CA

10:30 AM

University of Washington

Pac-12 Championships

May 13, 2018 | Track & Field

Complete Results

By: UW Athletic Communications

STANFORD, Calif. – Washington closed out the 2018 Pac-12 Track & Field Championships with six more top-five finishes on Sunday, led by a third-place finish for Amy-Eloise Neale in the 1,500-meters and big season-best runs for the 4x400m relays to wrap up the weekend.

As the two-day meet wrapped up at Stanford's Cobb Track & Angell Field, Washington's men's squad placed eighth out of the 10 teams with 42 points, placing ahead of UCLA and Arizona State, while Oregon won the team title with 174 points. USC ended Oregon's run of nine women's team titles, scoring 170 for first while the Huskies were ninth out of the 12 teams, finishing ahead of Washington State, Oregon State, and Utah.

Washington will now wait to see who makes the cut for the NCAA West Preliminary Championships, which are coming up in two weeks at Sacramento. From there it's on to the NCAA Outdoor Championships from June 6-9 to close out the season.

"I liked the way we competed down the stretch today, especially with great fourth-place finishes for both of our 4x4 relays, that was a fun way to close out the meet," said Head Coach Greg Metcalf. "Overall, we left some points on the board this weekend, but with such a young group and so many kids competing at their first Pac-12s, I think they learned a lot. They will have an opportunity now to grow from this and come back better."

Closing out the weekend on a high note were a couple determined 4x4 squads. In the women's race, the Huskies were in the slower of the two heats, but the group of Hanna Tarleton, Carolyn Birkenfeld, Iman Brown, and Imani Apostol won that heat by over four seconds, posting the third-fastest time in school history at 3:38.03. Only three of the six teams in the next heat posted faster times than the Dawgs, so UW finished fourth overall and likely qualified for West Prelims.

A matching 4??th for the men! A huge season-best 3:08.81 for Kemuel, Evan, Michael, and Ryan!! pic.twitter.com/srKr0Vqy7e
— Washington Track & Field (@UWTrack) May 14, 2018

The men followed that up with a season-best time by three seconds, running 3:08.81 to take fourth overall. The Dawgs needed a top-six finish to jump UCLA in the team rankings, and they more than achieved that. The group was comprised of Kemuel Santana, Evan Mafilas, Michael Thomas, and Ryan Croson, and the time was less than a second out of the UW top-10.

Neale reached the Pac-12 track podium for the second time in her career after taking second in the 5,000-meters last year. As the 1,500m final went off, the field dragged badly through one lap until Neale went around the outside and up to the lead to start making it a respectable pace. She led until the bell lap when Jessica Hull of Oregon took the lead. Neale was in fourth with 150 meters to go and kicked past one runner but the Hull and Christina Aragon of Stanford had pulled too far away, with Neale taking third in 4:24.44. Freshman Allie Schadler was 10th in the 12-woman field in 4:30.82.

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Gilbert ran near the front of the pack throughout his 1,500-meters final. The pack finally strung out during the final lap with Gilbert in fifth-place. He was caught by one runner down the stretch, crossing in sixth-place in 3:46.40.

Just missing the podium in her first Pac-12 Championship was senior Hanna Tarleton, as the former D-III transfer fought for a fourth-place finish in the 400-meter hurdles today. Tarleton clocked a time of 58.62 seconds to post five points for the Dawgs.

In the men's 800-meter final, freshman Devan Kirk and sophomore Connor Morello both made moves over the second lap to try and break into the top-three. Kirk came through just a couple strides behind the leaders in sixth-place in 1:51.19, while Morello was just edged out for the final scoring spot, finishing ninth in 1:51.98.

The first race of the day was the women's 4x100m relay final, where UW had a lineup of freshman Hannah Rusnak, junior Imani Apostol, sophomore Sarah Stavig, and freshman Olivia Ribera. The group got the stick around in 46.71 seconds to finish sixth and pick up three team points.

The men's 4x1 also finished in sixth-place today, running 41.25 seconds. The order went Kevin Liu to Kemuel Santana to Ryan Croson and Khalil Winfrey on the anchor.

Junior Blaise Black had a second-straight top-five finish in the pole vault, as he had a first-attempt clearance of 16-6 ½ to finish in fifth-place after taking third a year ago. Zach Shugart made 16-0 ½ for 10th and Jacob Bowler was 11th at 15-6 ½.

Sophomore Jose Padilla scored his first ever conference points as he took fifth overall in the men's discus with a best toss of 176-4. Freshman Jonah Wilson was 11th overall at 162-6.

A major season-best freshman Jaylen Taylor got him into the scoring column in his first Pac-12s. Taylor's best coming into the day was 48-6 ¾, but on his sixth and final attempt he got out all the way to 49-9, with a tailwind of 3.2, to move up to sixth-place which was where he finished.

In the 5,000-meter runs, redshirt freshmen Nick Laccinole and Gavin Parpart competed well throughout, ultimately finishing 14th and 15th, respectively, in times of 14:32.66 and 14:37.50. On the women's side, Emily Hamlin doubled back from her fifth-place in the steeplechase and was 14th in 16:49.91 while freshman Camila David-Smith was 19th in 17:11.55.

It was a tough final trip in the Pac-12 ring for senior Gina Flint, as she couldn't find her form in the discus today and threw just 143-3 to finish 17th overall after taking seventh yesterday in the shot put. Flint winds up having scored 15 points in her Pac-12 career.