Tag: washington track and field

Huskies pole vault trio earn First Team All-America at NCAA Championships

Washington’s standout pole vault trio lived up to expectations on Thursday, finishing 3-4-5 in the NCAA finals.

Three Huskies finished in the top five of the women’s pole vault on Thursday, cementing 14.5 points for Washington and living up to expectations as the country’s No. 1 ranked pole vault program.

True freshmen twins Hana and Amanda Moll were No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, while senior Nastassja Campbell was fourth. Amanda made her first All-American team, Hana her second after winning the NCAA indoor title in March, and Campbell her eighth.

All three women entered the meet at the second height of 13-7 1/4. Campbell and Hana cleared on their first attempts while Amanda needed a second. It was the same story at 14-1 1/4, then all three made 14-5 1/4 on their first attempt.

Campbell set a season-best with the 14-5 1/4 clearance, but neither she nor Amanda could clear the 14-9 bar. Amanda tied with Baylor’s Molly Haywood for No. 5, while Campbell took sole possession of No. 4 due to the attempts tiebreaker.

Hana was one of three women, including Rutgers‘ Chloe Timberg and Charlotte’s Riley Felts, to clear 14-9. Timberg cleared each height on her first attempt, while the other two women needed two attempts at 14-9. Felts was able to clear 14-11 on her first attempt, as did Timberg. Moll missed her first attempt, then all three women passed to 15-1, where Timberg was the only one to clear the bar.

Timberg would eventually set a meet record of 15-5 1/2 on her way to the gold.

Elsewhere at the NCAA Championships, the Huskies had three other competitors after Wilma Nielsen scratched the 800 meter prelims.

Decathlete Jami Schlueter finished up the second and final day of the event, setting a career-best discus throw of 139-6 on his way to No. 10 overall. He represents the best finish by a Husky since Jeremy Taiwo in 2013.

Sophie O’Sullivan and Chloe Foerster were separated in the two heats of the 1500m, unlike the men’s trio on Wednesday. O’Sullivan ran first, navigating the fastest national semifinal in NCAA history. She stuck herself to a lead pack of Providence’s Shannon Flockhart, Florida’s Flomena Asekol, and Oregon’s Klaudia Kazimierska that separated late in the race.

Knowing that she had some room to spare with five auto-qualifying spots, O’Sullivan slowed down at the end, finishing closer to No. 5 finisher Melissa Riggins of Georgetown than the lead trio. Her 4:08.04 was still more than enough to send her to Saturday’s final.

Foerster struggled with the pace in the second heat, which ended up being just a hair slower than the first. Harvard’s Maia Ramsden controlled the pace from the front, pushing to a 4:06.00, more than a second in front of the No. 2 finisher. The early pace quickly dropped Foerster and Kiana Carter of Lipscomb off the back, and Foerster finished No. 22 overall, good for an All-America Honorable Mention.

Washington has only milers left in the final two days of the NCAA Championships, which continue Friday and Saturday. Nathan Green, Luke Houser, and Joe Waskom are in the men’s final on Friday. O’Sullivan will close the Huskies’ season with the women’s final on Saturday.

Three middle distance runners added to Huskies’ NCAA Championships roster

Three more Huskies, all in the middle distances, qualified for the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon with stellar performances Saturday.

Saturday was the last day of the NCAA West regional meet in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with eight Husky women set to compete for a spot at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

As has been the story for most of Andy and Maurica Powell’s tenure on Montlake, the middle distances carried Washington. Three runners qualified for the Huskies, two in the 1500 meters and one in the 800 meters.

Senior Sophie O’Sullivan didn’t run outdoors this season until the Pac-12 Championships two weeks ago, where her times were good enough to qualify her as the No. 11 seed heading into Fayetteville. But on Saturday, O’Sullivan showed hardly any rust as the championship races approach. The European U23 champion – O’Sullivan competes internationally for Ireland – pulled away from the pack with Texas Tech’s Juliet Cherubet, who edged out O’Sullivan for the win in the first heat. Cherubet set a facility record of 4:09.04, smashing Christin Wurth-Thomas’ time of 4:12.70 from 2008. O’Sullivan was well under that pace as well, running a season-best 4:09.61.

In the second heat, Pac-12 champion Chloe Foerster controlled the pace for most of the race, easing to a No. 3 finish in her heat, well within the top five positions needed for an automatic qualification. The sophomore finished with the No. 11 fastest time of the day with a 4:17.63 in a race where the top finisher would have been No. 9 in O’Sullivan’s heat.

Foerster will return to her home state of Oregon alongside O’Sullivan, who qualified for her second consecutive NCAA Championship in the event.

In the 800m, Washington’s hopes came down to the wire. Senior Samantha Friborg was unable to find her signature stride down the final stretch, finishing No. 21 overall and No. 7 in her heat with a time of 2:07.49. But sophomore Wilma Nielsen ran a 2:03.11 in the second heat, just half a second outside of what would have been an auto-qualifying third place.

Nielsen had to wait for the third and final heat of the evening to see if she qualified for one of the three wild-card spots in Eugene. Three women pulled apart from the rest of the pack, setting the fastest, No. 3 fastest, and No. 6 fastest times of the day. But No.4 in the heat was well behind in 2:03.84, making Nielsen the fastest of the non-automatic qualifiers and punching her ticket to the championship races.

Elsewhere in Fayetteville, four other Huskies saw their seasons come to an end. 5,000 meter runner Julia David-Smith, the No. 34 seed coming in, hung onto the lead group until two laps to go and finished No. 19 overall with a time of 16:18.72 in humid conditions. Triple jumper Lauren Heggen was No. 44 with a mark of 40-6 1/4 in her first NCAA West regional appearance. Discus throwers Beatrice Asomaning and Kaia Tupu-South were No, 16 and No. 21 overall, respectively.

Tupu-South set a personal best, first throwing a 178-1 on her first attempt and then bettering it with a 178-10 on her final throw to become the No. 5 in program history in the event. Asomaning threw 181-0 in her final event in purple and gold, finishing as the No. 2 best woman to throw the hammer and the discus in school history and the best in the indoor weight throw.

Nielsen, Foerster, and O’Sullivan joined 11 other Huskies on the docket for the NCAA Championships, which begin June 5 in Eugene.

Huskies track and field adds four more NCAA Championship qualifiers

The group heading to the NCAA Championships for Washington’s track and field program hit double digits on Friday.

The men’s portion of the NCAA West Regional meet concluded on Friday in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Seven Huskies had already punched their tickets to the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Oregon from June 5-8 entering the day.

Four more members of the Pac-12 champions joined them Friday, including Washington’s trio of NCAA champions in the 1500 meters. Defending outdoor champion Nathan Green, 2022 outdoor winner Joe Waskom, and back-to-back indoor mile champion Luke Houser all finished in the top 5 of their heats, automatically qualifying for the final rounds in Eugene.

Waskom led the trio on Friday, powering around the final corner to set a season-best 3:39.83 on his way to winning the first heat. Green and Houser were No. 3 and No. 4 in the second of the two heats behind Iowa State’s Ezekiel Rop and Wisconsin’s Adam Spencer. Green was the fourth-fastest qualifier of the day in 3:40.04 and Houser finished No. 7 overall in 3:40.45.

Washington will look to continue their recent dominance in the premier distance event under coach Andy Powell in Eugene. Between the qualifying trio, the Huskies have won each of the last four titles in the mile/1500m. Powell has now coached half of the last 14 champions in the event, dating back to his time at Oregon.

400 meter hurdler Jonathan Birchman was not seeded as if he would qualify for Eugene, having to run from the outside lane in the third heat of the event. The senior responded by keeping pace in what ended up being the fastest heat, cracking the 50 second barrier for the first time in his career with a personal best time of 49.98. He automatically qualified with the fifth fastest time of the day to make his second consecutive NCAA Championships meet.

Elsewhere in Fayetteville on Friday, three other Huskies concluded strong seasons with marks below the national qualifying bar. 5,000 meter runner Leo Daschbach, who clinched the Pac-12 team title for the men in Boulder, finished No. 17 in 14:37.49 in a hot and humid race not conducive to longer distances. Sam Affolder, who took No. 2 at the Pac-12 championships behind Waskom in the steeplechase, finished in No. 30 in 9:08.59 in the event Friday. Triple jumper Trevontay Smith, one of the few freshmen to join the Huskies’ contingent in Arkansas, was No. 22 after fouling on all but his first attempt, which went for 50-4 3/4.

The milers and Birchman join decathlete Jami Schlueter, javelin thrower Chandler Ault, long jumper Prestin Artis, and pole vaulters Max Manson, Hana Moll, Amanda Moll, and Nastassja Campbell as national qualifiers.

Eight Huskies will have a chance to join the group heading to Eugene on the final day of the regional meet in Fayetteville on Saturday. Action begins with Kaia Tupu-South and Beatrice Asomaning in the discus and will conclude with Julia David-Smith in the 5,000 meters.