Ducks Finish Home Season with Star-Studded Twilight
This Week:
Some of the nation’s finest professional and collegiate athlete’s will be assembled at Hayward Field, Friday for the annual Oregon Twilight. The Ducks’ final regular season home meet will begin at 3 p.m.
In addition to the Oregon Twilight, four Ducks will begin the Pac-12 Championships this weekend in Los Angeles with the combined events running Saturday and Sunday. Three-time Pac-12 Champion Dakotah Keys will be looking for the first four-peat in the decathlon in Pac-12 history. Joining Keys will be second team All-American Mitch Modin and Joe Delgado. Ashlee Moore will be the Ducks’ lone representative in the heptathlon.
Competition begins Saturday at 1 p.m. and will resume at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
Coverage:
The Oregon Twilight will have a portion televised live on the Pac-12 Networks, from 6 p.m.-7 p.m. The earlier portion of the meet will be streamed for free on www.goducks.com/live. Live results for the meet will be available on goducks.com, here.
Live results for the Pac-12 Combined Events Championships can be found here.
Kids Get In Free:
Kids 12-and-under will receive free admission to the meet and will have the chance to run in the Kids’ Half-Lapper at 5:10 p.m.
Senior Night:
The University of Oregon will recognize an outstanding group of 25 senior track and field student-athletes tonight. Combined, they have seven NCAA team titles, three individual NCAA titles, seven individual Pac-12 crowns and 28 individual All-America certificates.
Featured Events:
Women’s 100 Meters: Oregon’s first All-American in the event, Mandy White, will be returning to Hayward Field and will go head-to-head with 2014 graduate Phyllis Francis.
Women’s 200m: World Championship Silver Medalist in the Heptathlon and 7-time NCAA Champion while at Oregon, Brianne Thiesen-Eaton returns to Hayward Field for the first time since last year’s Oregon Twilight. She takes on Oregon’s top two quarter-milers Christian Brennan and Ashante Horsley as the two Ducks look for a tune-up before the Pac-12 Championship next weekend.
Women’s 1500m: Features former Oregon stars Kimber Mattox, Alexi Pappas, and Becca Friday. Mattox, a current volunteer assistant for the Ducks, is not only one of the top steeplechase athletes in the US, but she also recently taken up off-road obstacle racing – winning the 2014 Warrior Dash World Championship earlier this year. Pappas, was a three-time All-American for Oregon while Friday was an eight-time Oregon All-American. The field also includes the Penn Relays Olympic Development Mile Champion Kerri Gallagher and 2012 Olympian Geena Gall-Lara, a two-time NCAA Champion in the 800m while a student at Michigan.
Men’s 100 Meters: Decathlete world-record holder Ashton Eaton will be running in the men’s 100 against former All-American from Colorado Joe Morris. The pair of freshman football speedsters will also run, as Tony Brooks-James and Charles Nelson turn to the track after the football spring game.
Men’s 400 Meters: Eaton will see former USC star and Olympic 4x400 silver medalist Bryshon Nellum. The 2011 NCAA Champion in the 800 meters, Charles Jock, is also entered in the event.
Men’s 800m: The field is headlined by 2013 World Championship 1,500 meter silver medalist Matthew Centrowitz. Centrowitz, the 2011 NCAA and USATF 1500 meter champion, was a 7-time All-American for Oregon and is the school record holder in the 1500 meters. This race marks a return for 2008 and 2012 Olympian and 5-time NCAA Champion for Oregon Andrew Wheating, who hasn’t raced at Hayward Field since 2013.
Men’s 1000m: The field is headlined by former Oregon 2-time NCAA 1,500 meter Champion Mac Fleet. Fleet, who is in his first year as a professional runner, led Oregon to the NCAA Championship last year. Jordan McNamara, another former Oregon Duck, who has posted an impressive professional career so far will prove to be Fleet’s greatest challenger in the race. Patrick Casey, a former All-American at Oklahoma, is also in the field. Oregon’s Johnny Gregorek, a graduate student who completed an undergraduate career at Columbia University, is the top collegiate entry.
Men’s Mile: A race that will be headlined by current Oregon Ducks also features former UNC All-American Isaac Presson, Australia’s Joshua Wright, and Canadian Luc Bruchet. 42 Ducks have broken the illustrious 4 minute mile barrier, the most significant time goal in American track and field. The list includes: Jim Bailey, the first person to break the 4 minute barrier on US soil; Olympic Gold Medalist Joaquim Cruz; the legendary Oregonian Steve Profontaine; 1968 Olympian Wade Bell; World Championship Silver Medalist Matthew Centrowitz and others. Four Ducks broke the barrier during the indoor season.
Rankings:
In the latest USTFCCCA computer rankings, the Oregon men’s team remained at No. 5 while the women dropped one spot to No. 7.
Going for the Four-Peat:
Oregon senior Dakotah Keys is aiming for his fourth Pac-12 Championship in the decathlon this weekend. He would be the 15th person in Pac-12 history to capture four championships in a single event, the first to do it in the combined events. Jeshua Anderson of Washington State is the most recent to complete the sweep, ending his 400 hurdles dominance in 2011.
Two Ducks have accomplished the feat of winning four Pac-12 titles. Rachel Yurkovich did so in the javelin from 2006-09 and Steve Prefontaine did so in the three-mile from 1970-73.
