CONFERENCE PREVIEW: Nine Events to Watch at PAC-12s

NEW ORLEANS — We haven’t written too much about the team races on conference weekend. But perhaps the most interesting one in the country is resuming in Los Angeles tomorrow. Oregon has won the men’s Pac-12 meet for eight straight years, and the women’s for six straight. The resurgent USC Trojans, though have a real shot at ending one or both of those streaks.

I have Oregon winning the men’s meet 141-133 and USC winning the women’s meet 166-165. Ken Goe has Oregon winning both meets, 135-132 on the men’s side and 178-168 on the women’s. Both sets of predictions mean that the meet is essentially a tossup– single-digit gaps over a twenty-event track meet are not something that anyone should be confident predicting.

In the men’s meet, it’s more or less USC sprints against Oregon distance. I have the Trojan sprinters outscoring the Ducks 96-30, and I have the Duck distance runners beating the Trojans 56-1. It’s unfairly highlighted because it took place on a separate weekend, but Dakotah Keys’s no-height in the decathlon pole vault could end up being extremely important.

The women’s meet has the same contours, but both of those teams are a little less top-heavy. Oregon’s female sprinters could draw even with their USC counterparts, and the Duck distance women are not nearly as dominant. The women’s meet could come down to a centimeter here or there in the field or a photo finish on the track.

Here are ten events to keep an eye on:

Schedule | Men’s entries | Women’s entries | Live results

Men’s hammer

Saturday, 10:00 AM PT/1:00 PM ET

McCullough snuck up on everyone and nearly stole the NCAA weight throw title from Michael Lihrman indoors. He won’t surprise anyone outdoors: each of his three hammer throws this year has been a new season best, with his last one cracking the all-time top ten.

Skipper’s fifth place at indoor nationals provided Oregon’s only non-distance points there. He’ll need to grab second here to keep the Ducks in the meet.

Women’s discus
Sunday, noon PT/3:00 ET

Valarie Allman could do her hated rivals a favor here. The world junior silver medallist would help Oregon immensely if she broke up the USC duo of Tera Novy and Alexandra Collatz. For all the (rightful) attention on the distance events, this might be highest scoring event for the PAC-12 at the NCAA meet.

Unfortunately, Stanford’s Rebecca Hammar has only thrown the shot and discus this year, though she’s dabbled in her namesake event in the past.

Men’s 1500

Sunday, 1:30 PT/4:30 ET

That’s right: fully 25% of the nation’s top 100 in the men’s 1500 comes from one conference, and that’s without the indoor mile national champ having run the event this outdoor season. The entry list looks a little different than what I’ve culled from the national descending order list above, as it includes some indoor times. But with prelims, qualifying times are largely irrelevant.

Cal’s Thomas Joyce has been on fire competitively this spring, winning all seven races he’s started outdoors. Ben Saarel is the top returner from last year’s meet, as Lawi Lalang and Mike Atchoo have graduated and Cheserek is sticking to the 5k.

A hot pace might be a good strategy for Joyce, Saarel, Sean McGorty, etc. as the Oregon men may run safe for team points.

Men’s 100 + 200

Both Sunday: 100 at 2:35 PT/5:35 ET, 200 at 3:45 PT/6:45 ET

The tritest word in sprinting is "execution." But USC simply must take care of business here if they are to have any chance of knocking off Oregon. Lee has a mountain of points at Pac-12 meets dating back to 2013–he won the conference 100 that year–but this is the first Pac-12 meet for De Grasse and Thymes after transferring in to the program. Great regular season times are usually a pretty helpful predictor in sprinting; Robert Johnson is opening that at least one of De Grasse or Thymes is an exception to that.

Women’s 100

Sunday, 2:25 PT/5:25 ET

Though Westbrook beat both of them at indoor nationals, Prandini and Todd are way ahead of the competition here. The less compressed competition schedule and longer race should help the Duck duo grab eighteen points. The bigger question is if the four Trojan women behind Westbrook–Alexis Faulknor, Tynia Gaither, Destinee Brown, and Deanna Hill–can sweep places four through seven.

Women’s 800

Sunday, 2:45 PT/5:45 ET

Shelby Houlihan is skipping this race to go for a strength double; more on that below. Saunders has three NCAA top-two finishes (one in the 800, two in the DMR) but zero top-three Pac-12 finishes in her career. (That stat is a hair unfair as there’s no Pac-12 indoor meet, essentially halving her opportunities)

This race is Saunders versus the hair-on-fire Annie Leblanc, who has won all three of her open races this outdoor season and most recently walked down NCAA champ Natoya Goule on the anchor leg of the Penn Relays SMR.

While the present of the event–Saunders and Leblanc–battle it out for the title, the future of the event will be duking it out for third. Raevyn Rogers and Olivia Baker are the second and fifth-ranked freshmen on the national list in the event, and two of the most promising.

Women’s 5k

Sunday, 3:55 PT/6:55 ET

This was the race last year where Houlihan showed she could do it all, knocking off 5k stud Aisling Cuffe for an upset win. A year later, Houlihan is making her season debut in the 5k against another historically fast Card: Jess Tonn ran 15:18 and finished as the first collegian in the Payton Jordan 5k, beating the likes of Dominique Scott and Rachel Johnson there.

Stanford is entering a 5k debutant of its own: Elise Cranny is making her first career pass at the event. One wrinkle here is that a whopping fifty-eight women are entered in the last open race of the weekend. Presumably some will scratch out, but that’s a massive number to throw in one eight. Thirty-one women started the PAC 5k last year, which seems to be about the max for one heat.

Men’s 5k

Sunday, 4:20 PT/7:20 ET

As of today, Cheserek, Jenkins, and Geoghegan are on the outside looking in for nationals. Obviously that will change on Sunday–those three are only entered in the 5k, sacrificing potential team points for a surefire qualifier.

Ches and Jenkins will go 1-2 in some order. The real drama–possibly the meet-clinching or -losing points–will come in places two through eight. Will Geoghegan showed his championship mettle when he helped Ches and Jenkins complete a 1-2-3 sweep at the NCAA 3k in March, and he’ll have some of the freshest legs in the field.

If a lack of racing connotes freshness, then Maksim Korolev will be the freshest man in the meet. He’s raced exactly one time this outdoor season, taking third in 8:13 in the Big Meet 3k. The fifth-year is entered in the 10k and 5k, and has the gusto and talent to challenge for a top three spot. He’s not afraid to pass Cheserek, as he showed in the (mostly meaningless) West Region cross country meet.

USC has no men entered in the five. The Trojans are a lock for a top-three 4×4 finish, but their meet could come down to rooting for the Stanford and Colorado men in the 5k.