Friends of Oregon Track and Field
NEWSLETTER SPRING 2014 VOLUME VI - ISSUE III
Men & Women bring Twin Titles to TrackTown!
Above: Oregon women and men celebrate their 2014 NCAA Indoor Championship Team Titles
Without question, it was the most successful indoor track and field season in University of Oregon history. A season that ended with two electrifying NCAA Championship titles also included an American Record, an American Junior Record, a Collegiate Record, 29 first team All-American performances, 9 school records and numerous Oregon top-ten performances by our teams. It was a season that started with great promise at January’s UW Preview, continued throughout February, and did not disappoint on the second weekend in March at the NCAA Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The most impressive day of all was Saturday, March 15, when for the first time ever both the Men and Women of Oregon brought home national titles on the same day. The men’s team led throughout most of the two-day competition and sealed their first NCAA Championship victory since 2009 after a strong performance in the 3,000 meters, while the women suffered a slow start but roared down the homestretch to claim their record-tying fifth straight NCAA Indoor title. The final event of the meet, the women’s 4x400 meter relay, proved to be the most dramatic of the weekend. After making up ground on the competition all evening, the Women of Oregon trailed both Texas and Florida by 1.5 points, setting up a winner-take-all relay final. It was a race for the ages that has been replayed all over TrackTown USA since the exciting finish. Phyllis Francis, who won the open 400 meters in an American Record 50.46 ninety minutes earlier, erased Texas’s slight edge over the final strides to earn the event win by .02 seconds, setting
a collegiate record of 3:27.40. Her lean ultimately gave the Ducks their fifth straight team title, outdistancing team runner-up Texas by a half of a point. The Oregon women had a slow start to the competition, scoring just six points and sitting in 14th place after the first day of competition. Their 38 points in day two catapulted them into title contention and started with Francis’ American Record performance in the 400 meters. Her world-leading and collegiate record time is also the fastest in the world since 2007 and is the first 400 meter National Championship in Oregon women’s history. Jasmine Todd and Jenna Prandini followed with eight points in the 60 meter dash, an event where the Ducks are steadily proving their dominance. Todd took third with a personal-best time of 7.16, the second fastest in school history, while Prandini placed seventh in 7.32. Laura Roesler provided the final piece to put Oregon in a position to claim the trophy when she picked up her first individual National Championship in the 800 meters. The senior, who had been ranked number one all season, made her move with 150 meters remaining and won in 2:03.85. The victory for the Men of Oregon was far less dramatic, but just as exciting. The team finished with a school record 62 points, coming from the entire squad, as all twelve Ducks who competed in Albuquerque Continued on page three...