Pac-12 Championships On Hand For Huskies

Saturday, May 12

Stanford, CA

11:30 AM

University of Washington

Pac-12 Championships

May 09, 2018 | Track & Field

Meet Notes

By: UW Athletic Communications

PAC-12 CHAMPIONSHIPS
May 12-13 • Stanford, Calif. • Cobb Track/Angell Field

Championships Home Page | Live Results

SEATTLE - Championship season arrives for the Washington track and field squad as the Pac-12 Championships bring the Huskies down to the Bay Area. Stanford hosts the battle of the West Coast's best this Saturday and Sunday, May 12-13, at Cobb Track and Angell Field. This year for the first time both days of the championships will be broadcast live by the Pac-12 Network.

The Huskies have selected 28 men and 28 women to challenge for conference supremacy this weekend, which kicks off the championship portion of the track calendar. Two weeks after the Pac-12 meet will be NCAA West Prelims in Sacramento, Calif, followed by the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Ore. from June 6-9.

SCHEDULE: Saturday features 9 field event finals and 4 track finals; Sunday features 7 field event finals and 20 track finals. Saturday starts with the wommen's hammer at 11:30 a.m., then the next field event gets going at 2:00 and the first track race, the 4x100m relay prelims, goes at 2:30 p.m. Track finals Saturday include the steeplechases, which go at 5:30 p.m., and the 10,000-meter runs, which close out the day at 7:10 (women) and 7:50 (men). On Sunday, the men's hammer is at 10:30 a.m., with the next event going at 1:00 and the first track race starting at 3 p.m., with all races on Sunday being finals.

TELEVISION: For the first time in event history, both days of the Pac-12 Track & Field Championships will be broadcast live. Coverage of the event will air on Saturday, May 12 starting at 5:30 p.m. PT and Sunday, May 13 starting at 3 p.m. PT across Pac-12 Network, all regional channels and Pac-12 Now. Paul Sunderland, Tom Feuer, Jordan Kent and Jill Savage will cover the action.

UW PAC-12 HISTORY: This is the 59th installment of the Pac-12 Championships on the men's side, and the 32nd women's championship. The very first men's meet was held in Seattle, in 1960, when the conference was called the Athletic Association of Western Universities. The Husky men's team has finished in the upper half of the conference for five of the past six years. In 2016, the Huskies used the home track advantage in a big way, as the Husky men finished as the Pac-12 runners-up for just the second time in school history, the only other time coming in 1976 when the conference was the Pac-8. The men crushed the program's all-time points mark, scoring 122 points, the first time UW ever scored over 100 at the conference meet.The men's squad was also third in 2015. In 2017, the men finished seventh. On the women's side, the Huskies have finished fourth-place each of the past two seasons, which equals the best conference finish in school history, also done in 1998, 1996, and 1995.

The Husky men have won at least one individual Pac-12 title for 13 years in a row, and 17 of the past 18 years. Last season, Carson Fuller extended the streak with a win in the javelin, the first Pac-12 title by a Husky in any of the throws since 2006. The women got a victory from Elizabeth Quick in the pole vault, as she became the first Husky vaulter to win back-to-back Pac-12 pole vault titles and made it four wins in a row for UW in that event.

WOMEN'S ENTRIES: Leading the Huskies in the loaded short sprints are a pair of freshmen, Olivia Ribera in the 100-meter dash and Iman Brown in the 200-meters. In the 400-meters, senior Carolyn Birkenfeld, junior Imani Apostol, and sophomore Sarah Stavig will all look for big PRs.

The 400-meter hurdles will be one of the biggest events for the women, as four Dawgs have thoughts of reaching the final. Hanna Tarleton is seeded fourth with her season-best time of 58.24, but Carly Lester is close behind at sixth at 59.14, Morganne Hill is ranked ninth at 59.38, and Darhian Mills is 11th at 1:00.31 but finished fourth at Pac-12s a year ago. In the 100m hurdles, Hill and Hannah Rusnak will try to break the 14-second mark for the first time.

Both Husky women's relays are seeded seventh coming into the meet. The Dawgs will look to put together some season-bests in both to have a shot at reaching NCAA Prelims.

Senior Amy-Eloise Neale leads the Husky distance crew, coming off her school-record 5,000-meter time of 15:24.16 on this same Stanford track last week. Neale was the Pac-12 5,000m runner-up last year and is ranked second again this year. She is also seeded fourth in the 1,500-meters, while Anna Maxwell is ranked seventh and Allie Schadler is ranked eighth. Junior Hannah Derby will look to make a second-straight Pac-12 final in the 800-meters.

In the steeplechase final on Saturday, three runners have season-best times at least 19 seconds faster than the rest of the field, but junior Emily Hamlin leads that potential chase pack as she ranks fourth overall at 10:24.04. No Huskies have run a 10k yet this year but Kaitlyn Neal is entered in what would be the first of her career. Along with Neale in the 5k, Neal, Hamlin, and Maxwell could all double back to run it, while freshman Camila David-Smith is only entered in the 5k.

Senior Mayson Douglass will try to post some points in the high jump as she has made 5-5 several times this year and is due for a breakthrough. In the women's pole vault, sophomore Annika Dayton comes in seeded fifth after her PR of 13-4 1/4 last Saturday at the Ken Shannon Invite. Tori Franzen is seeded seventh as well, and Monica Cohen will make her first Pac-12 appearance. Freshman Jelani Heath will be the only Husky in the horizontal jumps, going in the long jump.

In the throws, senior Gina Flint will look to add to her Pac-12 career point total. Flint has scored 13 points in her career, the most coming from a second-place finish in the discus last year. She will be in the shot put and discus once again. Sophomore Angel Nkwonta will throw the shot as well as the hammer, and senior Katie Wardsworth will throw the hammer as well. In the javelin, sophomores Daisey Newman and Emmy Engle will try to spear some personal-bests.

MEN'S ENTRIES: In the men's sprints, sophomore Khalil Winfrey is the top-seeded Dawgs at 100-meters, coming in 11th at 10.49, though freshman Kevin Liu has a chance to build off a strong Ken Shannon meet where he ran 10.61, as he goes in his first Pac-12s. Jordan Lucas also set a new PR of 10.68 earlier this season. Liu and freshman Kemuel Santana have matching seed times of 21.39 as they see how they stack up in the 200-meters.

In the quarter mile, freshman Evan Mafilas is the No. 7 seed with a season-best of 47.22 seconds and junior Ryan Croson is 10th at 47.58 as he looks to make his second Pac-12 final. Senior Michael Thomas has battled injury this season but was a surprise seventh-place finisher at Pac-12s a year ago. Sophomore Jason Palmer will also get a shot at the open 400-meters.

The Dawgs are seeded fifth coming in in the 4x100-meter relay after taking third a year ago, and their 4x400m relay is also fifth but will have plenty of motivation to run a season-best and take a shot at posting a Prelims qualifier.

The 800-meters could be a battle as eight runners come in having run under 1:50 including freshman Devan Kirk who is third overall at 1:48.88, and Connor Morello who was a finalist last year and is ranked seventh at 1:49.97. All-American senior Colby Gilbert, a former Pac-12 Champion at 5,000-meters, is entered in the 1,500-meters as well as the 5k. Also racing the 1,500-meters is senior Johnathan Stevens and redshirt freshmen Nate Beamer and Nick Laccinole.

The only top seed going into the weekend for UW on either side is senior Andrew Gardner, who has the top steeplechase time by a couple hundredths over Stanford's Steven Fahy. Gardner was fourth in the Pac-12 steeple two years ago. Julius Diehr will also steeple on Saturday night. In the men's 10k, junior Fred Huxham and sophomore Andrew Snyder are entered in what would be the first 10ks on the track for both. Who finally ends up running the 5k on Sunday is always a bit of a mystery, but going in, Gilbert, Gardner, Huxham, Snyder, Diehr, Laccinole, and Stevens are all entered in what would be their second events of the weekend, while the only Husky coming in fresh would be redshirt freshman Gavin Parpart.

Last year in the pole vault, Blaise Black got a third-place finish, Zach Shugart was fifth and Jacob Bowler nabbed eighth-place. Those three will all be looking to score again. Freshman Jaylen Taylor gets a shot in both the long and triple jumps.

Freshman Jonah Wilson will pull double-duty in the shot put and the discus, coming in seeded ninth in the shot put and fifth in the disc. Jose Padilla will look to score for the first time as he is ranked fourth in the discus. Junior Denham Patricelli was sixth in the javelin a year ago and is ranked sixth again coming into the meet this year with his PR of 222-8. Redshirt freshman Jacob Wachtendonk and Dalton Sugg both get their first Pac-12 tests, coming in seeded 10th and 12th and looking to break into the top-eight.