Pac-12 Time: Championship Season Starts In Tucson

Saturday, May 11

Tucson, AZ

5:00 PM

University of Washington

Pac-12 Championships

May 09, 2019 | Track & Field

By: UW Athletic Communications

2019 Pac-12 Track & Field Championships
Saturday-Sunday, May 11-12
Tucson, Ariz. | Roy P. Drachman Stadium

Live Results | Event Schedule | Entries

Pac-12 Networks Live Online

SEATTLE – It's open season for championships, as the Husky track and field squad takes its top Dawgs to Tucson for the Pac-12 Championships this Saturday and Sunday, May 11-12. The Huskies are aiming for much-improved point totals and team finishes from a year ago, and they have the firepower to get that done.

The squad is down to 28 men and 28 women to take on the Pac-12's best at Arizona's Roy P. Drachman Stadium. The conference meet is the first in a three-pronged championship schedule for the Huskies, followed by NCAA West Preliminaries in Sacramento and then the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Austin, Texas in early June.

The Huskies already have one Pac-12 title in the bag thanks to sophomore Hannah Rusnak, who won the heptathlon title at the Pac-12 Multi-Events last weekend. Rusnak's win was the first in the heptathlon for UW since 1992. So the women start in second-place with 10 points behind Colorado which scored 13 points with a second- and fourth-place finish in the multis. The men have five points to start thanks to Parker Kennedy's fourth-place finish in the decathlon.

TELEVISION: The Pac-12 Networks will be broadcasting the championships live this year for the second time. Coverage of the event will air on Saturday, May 11 starting at 7:30 p.m. PT and Sunday, May 12 starting at 6 p.m. PT across all Pac-12 Network channels, the Pac-12 Now app and Pac-12.com.

SCHEDULE: Saturday features 9 field event finals and 4 track finals; Sunday features 7 field event finals and 20 track finals. The hammer events are first up each day, starting at 11 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, but after that the next field events won't go until 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and 4 p.m. on Sunday. The first running events start at 5 p.m. on Saturday and 6 p.m. on Sunday. On Saturday night, the women's 10k final will be last up and will not wrap up until nearly 11 p.m., while Sunday's action will finish around 9:40 p.m.

WOMEN'S ENTRIES: The women's sprints entries will be highlighted by the 400-meter hurdles, where Darhian Mills, Carly Lester, and Morganne Hill all go into the meet ranked in the top-eight in the conference. In the short sprints, sophomore Olivia Ribera will run the 100-meters. Senior Imani Apostol will race the 400-meters, where she will try to crack the top-eight coming in as the ninth seed. Hannah Rusnak will be back to race the 100m hurdles this week, where she is ranked 12th with her 13.68 second PR set in the heptathlon.

At 800-meters, the Huskies have three women with season-bests between 2:07.58 and 2:07.78 in Hannah Derby, Nicole Goecke, and Kelly Makin, ranked 12th, 14th, and 15th. Allie Schadler comes into the 1,500-meters ranked third with her 4:16.57 personal-best, while Katie Rainsberger should be a factor after her win at the Ken Shannon Invite got her a Regional qualifier. Senior Anna Maxwell is also ranked 10th in the 1,500m.

Senior Emily Hamlin comes in with the second-fastest Pac-12 time in the steeplechase, and Shona McCulloch will look to grab some points there as well as she is seeded 10th. In Saturday night's 10k final the Huskies will look to Izzi Batt-Doyle, the Pac-12 leader this season, as well as Kaitlyn Neal and a couple Huskies making their Pac-12 and 10k debuts in Kiera Marshall and Hannah Waskom. Sunday's 5k could potentially feature every Husky entered in the previous distance races.

Senior Olivia Gruver will try to capture her first Pac-12 title in the women's pole vault as the prohibitive favorite as anyone with the NCAA Outdoor Record would be. Junior Annika Dayton and redshirt freshman Makenna Barton will also look to be factors, as Dayton was the fifth-place finisher last year and comes in seeded fourth.

Rusnak will compete in the long jump along with sophomore Jelani Heath.

In the throws, junior Angel Nkwonta jumped up to fifth in the Pac-12 with her 51-10 PR last week, and redshirt freshman Ginny Mehl went to sixth in the discus as she threw a PR of 170-2 last week. Mehl will also throw shot. Senior Onyie Chibuogwu heads into her final Pac-12 meet ranked fourth in the hammer throw, and she will also throw discus where she is seeded 12th. In the javelin, senior Katherine Taylor earned her spot in a final Pac-12 with her big PR at the Ken Shannon Invite of 150-11.

MEN'S ENTRIES: The Huskies will turn to Khalil Winfrey and Jordan Lucas in the 100-meters to kick things off in the sprints. Winfrey is seeded seventh with a time of 10.40. At 200-meters, Evan Mafilas ranks fifth with his PR of 21.00 and Kemuel Santana is 10th with his 21.09 best in a tightly packed field. Mafilas will also race at 400-meters where he ranks seventh, as will Jason Palmer who comes in ranked 15th.

In the 400-meter hurdles, freshman Cass Elliott will look to score at his first Pac-12 meet, as he is seeded fifth with his PR of 51.02 seconds.

In the 800-meters, Devan Kirk and Connor Morello will look to reach the final as they both did a year ago, with Mick Stanovsek also among the 800m entries. Stanovsek is also in the 1,500-meters field, where he ranks fifth, as is redshirt freshman Isaac Green who earned a chance by winning the Ken Shannon Invite last week.

The Dawgs will aim for a big group effort in the steeplechase on Saturday, as Julius Diehr comes in ranked fourth, Alex Slelnning is ranked sixth, and Nick Laccinole ranks seventh in a field of 13 entries.

Redshirt freshman Tibebu Proctor is ranked first in the men's 10k, but many men will run the distance for the first time this season on Saturday night. One of those is slated to be All-American Tanner Anderson, who has yet to race this outdoor season. Also entered in the 10k is Gavin Parpart, Andrew Snyder, plus all three steeplechasers: Slenning, Laccinole, and Diehr. The 5,000-meters will feature a fresh Fred Huxham, with all other potential Husky entries doubling back.

In the jumps, Chase Smith is the top seed in the men's pole vault with his best this season of 17-8 1/2. Senior Blaise Black, a former third-place finisher, and Parker Kennedy will also be in the mix. In the men's long jump, Sam Richmond makes his Pac-12 debut, coming in seeded 13th overall. Sophomore Jaylen Taylor was a Pac-12 scorer a year ago in the triple jump, and he comes in ranked third in the conference this season.

The throws should have plenty of fireworks this weekend with the Huskies hoping to explode a few themselves. In the shot put, sophomore Jonah Wilson comes in ranked third in the shot put in a field where seven men have thrown over 19.27-meters this season. In the discus, redshirt freshman Elijah Mason has the best mark in the Pac-12 by a slim margin with his PR of 199-0. Wilson is a sleeper in the discus at the seventh-spot, as Jose Padilla could be as well, as he scored in the discus last year at Stanford. Padilla will also compete in the shot put.

The men's javelin will be another battle, as senior Denham Patricelli comes in ranked second and will throw for the first time since his big PR in Arkansas at the National Relays where he went 236-6. Sophomore Jacob Wachtendonk will look to score for the first time as he is seeded sixth.