Dempsey Season Wraps With MPSF Championships

Friday, February 22

Seattle, WA

12:00 PM

University of Washington

MPSF Championships

February 21, 2019 | Track & Field

By: UW Athletic Communications

2019 MPSF Championships
Friday-Saturday, Feb. 22-23
Dempsey Indoor

MPSF Championships Home Page | Meet Schedule | Heat Sheets | Live Results

SEATTLE – The final indoor home meet for the Huskies is set for this Friday and Saturday as the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) Championships return to the Dempsey for the 16th consecutive season. The MPSF Championships are the premiere indoor conference meet for the west coast's top track and field squads.

The championships begin on Friday at 12 noon and runs until approximately 8:10 p.m. The first several hours on Friday will feature finals in the women's weight throw and women's pole vault, and the multi-events. Track races start at 4:30 p.m. on Friday with prelims of the 60m hurdles. Other field event finals held on Friday will include the men's pole vault and weight throw, and men's and women's long jumps. On the track, the men's and women's 5,000-meters, 200-meters, and distance medley relays will be contested, plus prelims for the 60-meter dashes.

Saturday picks back up at 10 a.m. Field events on Saturday include both men's and women's shot puts, high jumps, and triple jumps. Finals on the track will begin at 11 a.m. with the 60m hurdles finals, followed by the women's and men's mile runs, the 400-meters, 60-meter dash finals, 800-meters, 3,000-meters, and the 4x400m relays to finish the championships by approximately 3:30 p.m.

The meet serves a number of different purposes for the Huskies. For athletes in range of a top-16 spot in their events, it's a final shot to improve their marks and qualify for the NCAA Indoor meet. For athletes already likely to make the NCAA field, it's an opportunity to tune up for the meet which is coming up on March 8-9. Still for many other athletes the MPSF meet is the only time this indoor season when they are competing for place and team points, and it will be a chance to close the indoor season with some PRs and build momentum for outdoors.

"The meet is a qualifying opportunity for people to get to the NCAA Championships, it's a tune-up opportunity for people already in the NCAA Championships, or for anyone who's a year away from that, it's an opportunity to compete for place and practice the same skillset they're going to need at Pac-12s," said Maurica Powell, Director of Track and Field. "For the NCAA athletes, they will compete selectively either to qualify for another event or tune-up, and those that have not qualified this is a good springboard for outdoors."

The MPSF field holds steady this year at its record size of 15 men's teams and 22 women's teams. Every Pac-12 team will be on hand, plus BYU, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Northridge, Hawaii, Long Beach State, Portland, UC Irvine, and UC Riverside, UC Davis and San Francisco. Cal State Fullerton, Hawaii, Oregon State, UC Davis, UC Irvine, San Francisco and Utah feature women's teams only.

Under the conference championship format, teams had to pare their rosters down to 27 men and 27 women.

Huskies on Friday
Friday's action starts at high noon with the women's weight throw, where senior Onyie Chibuogwu comes in as the fifth seed after her 64-foot PR last week.

The women's pentathlon begins at 12:15 where sophomore Hannah Rusnak and junior Elinor Jones Toutant will start their five-event run. Rusnak comes in with the fifth-best score in the MPSF this season and has put her name in the Husky top-10 lists in the 200-meters, 60-meter hurdles, and the pentathlon this year.

The women's pole vault gets going at 2 p.m. with five Dawgs in the big field of 28. Annika Dayton comes in tied for sixth this season and will be joined by Makenna Barton, Kim Kramers, Monica Cohen, and Allyson Ely.

The men's heptathlon gets underway at 2 p.m. with sophomore Parker Kennedy ranked sixth based on season-best scores. Kennedy's first heptathlon this year of 4,899 points ranked eighth in school history.

The first Husky up in the sprints will be freshman Aaliyah Wilson in the 60-meter hurdles. She ranks 10th in school history with her season-best time of 8.61 seconds.

In the 60m dash prelims, sophomore Assa Kaba will lace it up and Wilson is entered there as well. The men will be led by junior Khalil Winfrey who is seeded sixth coming off a 6.73 second PR last week. Jordan Lucas is also in the field having missed the last month but with a PR of 6.83 that ranks him 11th.

Three more field events get going at 5:15 p.m., the women's and men's long jumps and the men's weight throw.

Sophomore Jelani Heath comes in seeded 10th in the women's long jump and junior Sam Richmond is eighth in the men's long jump, looking to score some points in his first conference meet.

In the men's weight, Connor Jost and Elijah Mason come in seeded 12th and 13th, respectively, as the two have nearly matching PRs now after Mason upped his PR last week to 59-9 1/2.

At 5:30, the men's vault starts, with senior Blaise Black seeded seventh coming in and Zach Shugart and Joey Weiler looking to pick up points.

The first finals on the track will be the women's and men's 5,000-meters, with the women's race starting at 5:45 and the men at 6:05. Redshirt freshman Sarah Carter will run the women's 5k, while four Dawgs will run for the men: Julius Diehr, Gavin Parpart, Tibebu Proctor, and Isaac Mohn.

Next up will be the 200-meter finals, with Kemuel Santana racing for the men coming off a PR of 21.69 seconds last weekend.

Night one closes out with the distance medley relays. Both Husky squads are in the top-12 in the NCAA going in but will likely run very different squads from their season-best times.

Huskies on Saturday
The first event Saturday for a Husky will be the women's shot put where Angel Nkwonta is entered, having yet to compete this season.

The mile titles will be decided at 11:10 for the women and 11:40 for the men. Allie Schadler is ranked sixth coming in with a 4:37.12 personal-best and Anna Maxwell comes in ranked 12th. The men will have Nate Beamer, seeded sixth in the field, and Fred Huxham is also entered in the mile, dropping down from his usual 3k/5k distance.

Next on the track are the 400-meter finals. Imani Apostol leads the women, coming in seeded seventh at 55.80. Carly Lester and Morganne Hill will also compete and Darhian Mills is entered after racing unattached so far this season. The men will have Jason Palmer and Evan Mafilas looks to get back in action with his first open 400m of the season after missing the past couple meets.

The men's shot put gets going at 12:45 with three Dawgs in the field. Sophomore Jonah Wilson, one of the breakout performers this indoor season, will likely need to improve on his season-best of 63-3 1/4 to reach NCAAs as he currently ranks 19th nationally. He'll be joined by Jose Padilla and Elijah Mason.

Back on the track for the women's 800m which will feature freshman Kelly Makin and seniors Hannah Derby and Nicole Goecke starting at 1:05 p.m. The men's 800m has three Dawgs seeded in the top-eight, as Connor Morello is third, Devan Kirk fifth, and Cass Elliott is eighth.

Sophomore Jaylen Taylor is coming off a PR of 49-1 in the triple jump which moved him up to sixth in the MPSF rankings. He goes at 1:30.

The 3,000-meter runs are the final individual events, and will likely have a number of scratches, but as it stands Huskies entered there include Katie Rainsberger, Lilli Burdon, Izzi Batt-Doyle, Emily Hamlin, and Olivia O'Keeffe for the women. The men's 3k is scheduled to have Diehr, Tanner Anderson, Parpart, Mohn, and Proctor.

The meet will wrap up with the 4x4 relays at 3 and 3:20 p.m.